Martianus Capella
The Marriage of Philology and Mercury

/155/

Book V
Rhetoric

→ lat [426] But while a great group of the earth-gods was disturbed by such thoughts, in strode a woman of the tallest stature and abounding self-confidence, a woman of outstanding beauty; she wore a helmet, and her head was wreathed with royal grandeur; in her hands the arms with which she used either to defend herself or to wound her enemies, shone with the brightness of lightning. The garment under her arms was covered by a robe wound about her shoulders in the Latin fashion; this robe was adorned with the light of all kinds of devices and showed the figures of them all, while she had a belt under her breast adorned¹² with the rarest colors of jewels.¹³ → lat [427] When she clashed her weapons on entering, you would say that the broken booming of thunder was rolling forth with the shattering clash of a lightning cloud; indeed it was thought that she could hurl thunderbolts like Jove.¹⁴ For like a queen with power over everything, she could drive any host of people where she wanted¹⁵ and draw them back from where she *wanted; she could sway them to tears and whip them to a frenzy, and change the countenance and senses not only of cities but of armies in battle. She was said to have brought under her control, amongst the people of Romulus, the senate, the public platforms, and the law courts, and in Athens had at will swayed the legislative assembly, the schools, and the theaters, and had caused the utmost confusion throughout Greece.

→ lat [428] What countenance and voice she had as she spoke, what excellence and exaltation of speech! It was worth even the gods’ effort to hear such genius of argument, so rich a wealth of diction, /157/ so vast a store of memory and recollection. What order in structure, what harmonious delivery, what movement of gesture, what profundity of concept! She was light in treating small topics, readv with middling topics, and with exalted ones a firebrand. In discussion she made her whole audience attentive, in persuasion amenable, full of conflict in disagreements, full of pride in speeches of praise. But when she had, through the testimony of some public figure, proclaimed some matter of dispute, everything seemed to be in turbulence,¹⁶ confusion, and on fire.¹⁷ → lat [429] This golden-voiced woman, pouring out some of the jewels of crowns and kingdoms, was followed by a mighty army of famous men, amongst whom the two nearest her outshone the rest. These two were of different nationalities and styles of dress, one wearing the Greek pallium, the other the Roman trabca. Each spoke a different language, though one professed to have studied Greek culture at Athens and was considered quick in the studies of the Greek schools and in the constant disputes and discussions of the Academy.¹⁸ Both were men from poor families, who rose to fame from humble beginnings.¹⁹ And although a Roman eques fathered one, and a toiling workman the other,²⁰ both grew to such fame through their oratorical prowess that after their destinies in public life and their unmerited deaths they rose by their excellence to the stars and now outlast the ages through their eternal glory. → lat [430] The one whom the people of Athens and the whole stream of Greeks followed had the reputation of being most forceful, more vigorous than the storms and raging of the angry ocean. He was described in verse such as this: “A man to fear, who might find fault even with the innocent.”²¹ → lat [431] But the other, /158/ who wore the purple of a consul, and a laurel wreath²² for suppressing a conspiracy, came into the senate of heaven, and, delighted to have conic into Jove’s presence, joyfully began to declaim: “How blessed we are, how fortunate the State, how brilliant the fame of my consulship!”²³ → lat [432] After these two in different lines there came the great orators of the past: one could see Aeschines, Isocrates, and Lysias, bearing before them the highest honors and the rewards of their eloquence; and then, in the Roman ranks, the Sosantii, the Gracchi, Regulus, Pliny, and Fronto.²⁴ → lat [433] But before them all, even before the woman who led the whole array, went an old man bearing the mark of office and the preceding rod, after the manner of a Roman lictor, and on the top of the rod there flew a golden-mouthed crow as a sign of the woman who was coming.²⁵ → lat [434] But the man who was carrying the rod was called Tisias, and seemed older and more important than all of them; for with a glance at the crow perched above him, he called the others, his inferiors, their common bond, and the woman in the lead their daughter. → lat [435] Stirred by this thought, very many of the gods believed that this /159/ woman of high nobility was, if a Greek, then the sister of Apollo, and if one of Romulus people [i.e., a Roman], one of the Corvinian family.²⁶ Added to this mystery was the fact that fearlessly and with very ready self-confidence she kissed the breast of Pallas and of the Cyllenian himself, thus giving clear signs of her almost sisterly intimacy with them. Indeed some of the gods – who, in fear of the heralding trumpet and in wonder at her friendship with the heavenly beings, had long been uncertain, and wanted to learn from foresighted Phoebus, since great Jove was not yet making any inquiry – began with some perturbation to ask who she was.

→ lat [436] She then, looking at the whole assembly of gods, with some emotion²⁷ began to speak: “I call to witness great father Jove and the other dwellers in heaven, whom I have often invoked in a great many cases, and the very assembly of the celestial senate, that there is no more unsuitable or more inappropriate opinion of me than that I, who have constantly been the accuser in many political and legal disputes and who in many other instances have been the defender and have striven²⁸ with all my might for the glory of the contest and have obtained for myself from the hazardous fates the fame of a well-earned result, should now amongst you gods, to please whom seemed the price of immortality, be compelled against my will to recall the advice given to school children and the jejune rules of a timeworn subject.²⁹ Nor does poverty bring me to this, since I have thronging hordes of followers.³⁰ But apart from those who break the benches³¹ and bring turmoil to the hearts and senses of all /160/ those who know me, I have other devotees also, who have written detailed instructions and commentaries on the most esoteric points of the subject; under each category³² of my followers my Cicero shines out, since he not only has thundered forth with the grandeur of impressive speech in forum, senate, and public assembly, but also in writing the rules of the subject has committed many books to use by future generations. → lat [437] Since this is so, regard for the dignity I have earned and the fame of a reputation as widespread as I believe mine to be, would deter me from expounding these elementary first principles, were it not that you command me, and that command contributes to my reward of immortality, and the pledge of everlasting fame inspires me to set forth even the rudiments of my subject when Jove and the gods ordain it. So I prepare myself to traverse these arid topics, giving less pleasure, indeed, than I usually do in public performances; although if the approbation of His Gracious Majesty has allowed Pallas and the Arcadian to participate,³³ then in your assembly, mighty deities, shall I cause displeasure? → lat [438] For I am Rhetoric herself, whom some term a science,³⁴ some a virtue, some a study; a science, because I am the object of teaching, although Plato disputes the title. ThdSe who have discovered that I possess the knowledge of how to speak well call me a virtue. Those who are aware that the innermost secrets of speaking can be studied and learned, proclaim confidently that I am a study.³⁵

→ lat [439] My duty is to speak appropriately in order to persuade; my object is through speech to persuade the hearer of the subject proposed.³⁶ I invoke the words of my Cicero, using whose examples /161/ I am going through all the branches of instruction in turn. → lat [440] My material is twofold – namely, in what circumstances and from what resources a speech is made: in what circumstances, when I approach the elements of the quaestio³⁷ itself; from what resources, when the matter and words of a speech are put together.

→ lat [441] The quaestio is cither limited or unlimited. It is limited when it arises from a particular action and concerns a given individual; for instance, in Cicero’s speech for Roscius, the issue is whether Roscius killed his father. The quaestio is unlimited when it asks as a general question whether one ought to do something; for example, the Hortensius³⁸ discusses whether one ought to pursue philosophy. I am often vigorously engaged in the former, which the Greeks chose to call hypothesis. In the unlimited quaestio, which has the boldness to make a universal affirmation, I engage mainly when I have in prospect leisure and argument, although generally that aspect of it which is called thesis would have often furnished me with sturdy javelins and far-ranging spears³⁹ in the more exalted parts of my lawsuits. Is not this what happens in the speech for Scaurus,⁴⁰ when Cicero interpolates a discussion on ‘the possible causes of sudden death,’ or again in the speech for Milo,⁴¹ ‘whether the world is governed by providence’? And then, some of my followers, inspired by most keen and subtle reasoning, assert that no issue is a hypothesis, but that all that may be argued in defense of the accused or against them in prosecution can be reduced to general issues.⁴²

→ lat [442] There is no doubt that my duty has five parts: matter, /162/ arrangement, diction, memory, and delivery.⁴³ Lor judgment, which some include,⁴⁴ is required in all the parts, and therefore cannot itself properly be considered a part, although it is the province of judgment to weigh what should and what should not be said. Matter, or invention, is the prudent and searching collection of issues and arguments.⁴⁵ Arrangement is that which puts the matter in order.⁴⁶ Diction chooses words that are proper or figurative, invents new usages, and arranges words of traditional usage.⁴⁷ Memory is the rifm guardian of our matter and our words.⁴⁸ Delivery is the control of our voice, movement, and gesture according to the importance of our matter and our words.⁴⁹ Of these, the most powerful surely is invention, which has the task of discovering the issues in a case and finding suitable arguments to prove it.

→ lat [443] There are two kinds of questions: principal and incidental.⁵⁰ Principal questions are those issues from which the case has arisen; Cicero calls them ‘constituting issues.’⁵¹ Incidental questions /163/ are those which arise in the course of a case, when in refuting arguments or written submissions the case is led into further questions: for example, a principal question is, whether Milo was right to kill Clodius; an incidental question, which one set an ambush for the other.

→ lat [444] The principal issues are three in number:⁵² whether a thing happened, what it was that happened, and what was the character of what happened. Whether a thing happened is a conjecture; as, for example, whether Roscius killed his father. What it was that happened is the definition of the action; for example, whether Cornelius did commit lesc majesty. The character of a thing is its quality; for example, whether it was just for Saturninus to be killed. But in case someone should say that I am passing over a fourth type of issue which is the discovery of Hermagoras,⁵³ more refined reasoning calls it not an issue but a part of the qualitative issue, as I shall show in discussing this issue.

→ lat [445] Now I must say how the issues in a case are found. They are found by assertion and rebuttal. Assertion is the accusation of the deed which has come for judgment. Rebuttal is a rejection denying the assertion; for example, ‘You killed your father’ is assertion, ‘I did not kill him’ is rebuttal. From these two juxtaposed statements arises the question, which is called the status because in it stands, as it were, the battle line of the parties to the suit, drawn up for conflict.⁵⁴ But it is easy to see what reply to make when an accusation has been made. It is not easy to see what charge should be asserted, whether the deed (for example, ‘You killed a man’) or the name of the deed (for example, ‘You committed homicide’). Although it seems to make no difference, yet if the former accusation is denied, the question will be one of conjecture when the accused has said: I did not kill him.’⁵⁵ But if the accusation is not of a deed /164/ but of the name of a charge, since one part or another may be denied it will not be clear what is the issue at stake. For you do not know what he is denying when a man says: I did not commit homicide’; is it that he did not kill a man, or that the assassination of a tyrant is not called homicide? One should therefore make an accusation of an action, so that, if your opponent denies the action, you may have an issue of conjecture; but if he concedes the action and denies the title of the accusation, you may know that it is the definition of the action that is at issue. → lat [446] But if he concedes both the action and the title of the accusation, yet says he was entitled or obliged to do it, then the issue of quality comes into the case; the issue of quality arises either with regard to the deed or to the lawsuit. For example, ‘Milo⁵⁶ would have been entitled to do what he did’ concerns the deed. ‘Whether a slave or bondman may appeal to the tribunes’; ‘whether a person of scandalous reputation may hold a public assembly’ – these questions concern the legal processes, and this sort of qualitative issue is called transference. But we need to take care that we do not impugn the function of the person who hears the case and allow the issue of quality to become the only issue. For the person before whom the case comes has to perform one duty: to either convict or acquit a man.

→ lat [447] There are three kinds of audience before whom cases come: one who has decided some matter according to equity, and is precisely a judge;⁵⁷ another who is in doubt over the propriety or /165/ advantage of a course of action and looks for persuasion to another’s opinion; he is a deliberator in perplexity.⁵⁸ The third kind is he who weighs with a free judgment the propriety or impropriety of an action, and it is customary to call him an assessor. These then are the three kinds of cases which are included in the hypothesis:⁵⁹ the judicial, the deliberative, and the demonstrative.

→ lat [448] But since all these people who listen to the cases as described are misled by uncertainty of their duties, it is necessary to examine the distinction between them and the particular function of each. The judge – whose function is to convict or acquit, to give possession of goods or remove them from possession – before a case comes to him, is in doubt how to discharge his duty. The deliberator is unsettled by the perplexity of his mind. The assessor of eulogy weighs with calculating thought whether a subject is being properly eulogized. But when these duties are being separated and distinguished, we concentrate on the differences between them caused by variations of time. For the duty of the deliberator is concerned only with a question in the future; for example, if Cato is deliberating whether he ought to commit suicide to avoid the spectacle of Caesar victorious. Sometimes the duty of the judge is exercised with regard to future time as well as to past time. The conjectural issue is found only in relation to a past action; the qualitative issue often arises from some future problem, as will be set out more clearly in due course.⁶⁰ The duty of the assessor of eulogy relates entirely to past actions, but it is distinguished from the duty of the judge by its purpose. For the judge’s purpose is to acquit the innocent by the exercise of justice, while the purpose of the other is to adorn the famous man with praise by the contemplation of his outstanding merits. Furthermore, in the judicial type of case the judge weighs his decision concerning the affairs of others,⁶¹ while in eulogy the assessor hears whether the things said are true and suitable, although /166/ the latest forms of flattery have brought a situation where the subject of the eulogy is often the judge of its eloquence. → lat [449] Therefore we ought to be on our guard not to trespass on the functions of our audience’s office. For example, if one were to declare to Verres that he ought to be punished, he would surely reply that he ought not to be punished, and the question whether he deserves punishment would appear to be merely a qualitative issue. Therefore the assertion arises from accusation of an action; for example, if in Verres’ case one says: ‘You plundered Sicily,’ to which he replies: ‘I did not,’ a conjectural issue arises. It is indeed foolish not to make an accusation of the act itself and instead to charge something that remains in the hands of the judge, or to charge someone merely with the particular name of the deed. Equally one must be careful, when some law or writing is cited in a case, not to draw our assertion from the law – as, for example, to say: ‘The law forbids you, an alien, to climb the wall.’⁶² One should rather say: ‘You climbed the wall,’ so that if the defendant denies this, the dispute is not over the law, but over the action to which the law applies. If he admits the deed, then clearly he has acted against the law. But if the deed is denied, then no matter what law or document is citect it will seem to be a futile argument, since a dispute over truth, not over law, is what constitutes a legal question. This is a fault through which many have been misled.

→ lat [450] Besides the three kinds of issue which I have mentioned, there are said to be four or five others, which proceed from the quality of a document. Although they have their roles in a part of a case, they are never the central issue, since no one could cite for the purpose of proof a law or any kind of document unless there were something to be proved. The issue is the matter that has to be proved, and that always arises from the primary dispute; other questions in dispute are to be treated as incidental.

→ lat [451] Thus one will have an easy way of determining the issue, since neither the name of the action nor the function of the audience nor any law or document can be brought forward in place of the accusation. So an accusation is, for example: ‘You killed a /167/ man,’ and the rebuttal: ‘I did not’; from these statements arises the question, whether the accused did kill a man, and here the issue is one of conjecture. But when the defendant counters the accusation by alleging the righteousness of his action, the issue is one of quality, just as Milo did not deny his action, but argued the righteousness of his action; he admitted that he had killed Clodius, but claimed that he had been right to do it. For this kind of rebuttal there is a procedure, but it is not a single nor a simple one; for one and the same deed can seem justifiable for a variety of reasons. For instance, one argument is that Milo killed someone who lay in ambush for him; another is to say that he killed an enemy of the state who was inflamed with the ambition to become a dictator. In these assertions there is indeed a qualitative issue, but different kinds of qualitative issue emerge; for the first is revealed as a relative, the second as a comparative, qualitative issue. But if the accusation is opposed not by an assertion of the righteousness of the deed but by a denial of the name applied to it, although this is called denial rather than rebuttal, yet it does not make the issue one of conjecture, because it is not the deed but its name that is in dispute. For example, consider an action for adultery. A husband who has divorced his wife finds a rake with the divorced wife, and accuses him of adultery.⁶³ The defendant disputes the case, and does not deny the act but contests the name of adultery, and the question arises, what is adultery? This is a dispute over definition. → lat [452] Therefore a conjectural issue is a denial of the fact, whereas an issue of definition is a denial not of an action but of its title; and therefore it is a rebuttal of the charge brought, since, when another name is put on a deed, the danger implicit in the charge made is denied, as in the charge: /168/ ‘You stoic goblets of the temple from the house of the priest: you have committed sacrilege.’ The rebuttal is: ‘I stole the goblets, but since I stole them from the priest’s house and not the temple, it should be called theft, not sacrilege.’ In this instance also there seems to be a certain denial of the deed, in another way; for the action admitted docs not aim at injury to the gods but at cost to the priest, since the cups were stolen from his house. In this case each kind of action needs to be defined; that is, what is a sacrilege and what is theft.

→ lat [453] Now I must discuss the qualitative issue, the manifold nature of which first calls for division into parts, so that when one has run through the list the particular characteristics of each may be explained one by one. The qualitative issue, then, is concerned with either the action or the lawsuit. It is concerned with the action when it treats of the principle or the cause of the deed which has been brought to court, or when there is a dispute about what ought to be done; for example, whether Milo was entitled to kill Clodius, or whether Cicero should regain possession of his house. It is concerned with the lawsuit when there is a question whether a suit should be permitted and a judgment given. Since thi5 part of the qualitative issue depends on the justice of the law, it is right and more accurate to include it under the heading of the qualitative issue; it is different from what Hermagoras preferred to distinguish from the qualitative issue as being a new point of dispute, and to call transferal, or limitation. → lat [454] But this comes later. Just as the qualitative issue applies to past time, so it applies to the future. As applied to the past it is juridical, as applied to the future it is connected with one’s business and public life. In either case there is an allegation about right. In juridical questions the allegations concern rights in nature; in connection with business they concern law or custom. The forensic qualitative issue is divided into an absolute and an extrinsic type. The absolute is that which defends the action itself by argument from its own nature and rightness. The extrinsic is that which, on finding nothing defensible in the act as such, has recourse to the motive, and claims that that was just; as, for instance, when Milo could not claim that homicide is right in itself, he claimed, as his motive for the killing, the ambush Clodius set for him. This type gets its name, ‘extrinsic,’ from the fact that /169/ when an action cannot be defended absolutely the defense has recourse to the motives.

This extrinsic type has four parts: transferal, removal, comparison, concession. → lat [455] Transferal occurs when a defendant, having admitted the action, transfers the responsibility for it to the victim of the action; as Milo transferred the responsibility to Clodius, or Orestes to his mother, or Horatius to his sister when he claimed that he had killed her because the provocation of her offense had compelled him to the deed.⁶⁴ → lat [456] Removal occurs when responsibility for the alleged deed is transferred to some person or thing other than the accused. To another person: for example, when Tiberius Gracchus transferred the responsibility to Mancinus because Mancinus had been the author of the treaty which was repudiated by both the senate and the people.⁶⁵ Another example would be a case of this kind: ‘Unless an ambassador sets out on his mission within thirty days, he faces capital punishment. The quaestor⁶⁶ does not give the ambassador his traveling expenses and allowance; the time has elapsed. The ambassador, when charged, argues against the charge, and transfers the charge to the quaestor.’ The charge is removed to a thing if, having been delayed by illness, the ambassador transfers to his misfortune the charge of delay. The action itself can be transferred if it is alleged that it pertained to someone else’s authority, or the cause of the deed can be transferred if it is alleged that something happened through someone else’s fault. → lat [457] Comparison is what I know is called compensation by some recent writers; /170/ not when the good deed of some other time is invoked to mitigate a charge, but when an action is defended by the justification that some advantage follows from it. For if the merits of another time are recalled, as it were, for the sake of compensation, one ought rather move to the deprecative qualitative issue, which is contained in the type of case concerned with winning a pardon. But [in the qualitative issue of comparison] one contends that he has acted rightly, as in that reply of Verres: I sold the tax rights very dearly,’

because the advantage gained compensates for the deed.⁶⁷ In this approach there is an admission of the deed, but the claim of benefit negates the enormity of the charge. In the other [the deprecative type] there is confession of the allegation and the deed, but it either is separated from the intention or, in the absence of justification, speaks with an eye to human feeling and compassion.⁶⁸ → lat [458] But this kind of qualitative issue, which looks toward winning a pardon, is separated into two approaches: toward justification and deprecation. Justification is pleaded when we admit the misdeed and excuse our intention and will; without doubt there are three ways to do this; namely, through alleging carelessness, chance, or compulsion. Carelessness is pleaded when we deny that something happened with our intention or knowledge; for instance: “A man hunting throws his javelin at a beast and kills a man hiding under the hunting nets.’ This is called error, and under this heading come ignorance, intoxication, forgetfulness, folly, insanity, and the other things which excuse an admitted error. Chance takes away the guilt of an event; as with the man with the animals for sacrifice on the religious feast day who encountered the rising river.⁶⁹ The man who murdered an /171/ innocent man on the order of his superior has committed a crime under compulsion. The difference between these three ways is that carelessness deceives, chance prevents, and compulsion compels. The deprecative type, however, makes no attempt to excuse, but expresses humble entreaty and supplication.

→ lat [459] Those who have studied these subjects note other questions, which they call incidental issues, as if the utterance of a first speech comprised essentially a defense.⁷⁰ Often the second speech [i.e., the defendant’s] summons the force of a prosecution; for example, in this case: ‘A brave man is given a free choice of reward. One man who has served bravely asks as his reward marriage to another man’s wife.’ In this case the man who has asked for the reward expects no opposition and accuses no one; but the husband opposes and accuses, although clearly he rises to speak second. The brave man will oppose him by rebuttal as if the husband were impeaching the request for reward which the brave man has asked; the brave man contends that the reward is just, as if he were defending an action that has been done according to law. → lat [460] Moreover, the legal questions which, I have said, occur like issues in cases, are not reckoned by the same rule, in that they crop up in the secondary dispute; the primary one is assigned to the qualitative issue. Therefore the rule of assertion and rebuttal is confused in the aspect of the qualitative issue that I have mentioned.

→ lat [461] Now it is time for me to discuss what the Greeks call the judgment (to krinomenon). For when assertion and rebuttal have shown the issue and the status, then if that is a conjectural issue, it will offer equal scope for judgment; for there is nothing to be weighed by the court except the denial itself. But in the qualitative issue or the issue of definition the defense⁷¹ through admission must /172/ have an explanation of the misdeed on some point other than that where the issue appears; the prosecutor weakens this explanation, and a secondary question arises, as it were, through the argument for and against this explanation. In these circumstances that point can be liable to judgment, and can be what the assessor weighs by the standard of justice; it can occur in any case and can comprise the whole issue. And there are many arguments for and many against, and therefore many sources of judgment, since one action can be defended in many ways, as Cicero did on Milo’s behalf because Milo killed a man who both laid an ambush for him and was a public enemy. In these cases, therefore, that issue will be stressed which the speaker has taken as most advantageous to the defense. That explanation is generally drawn from the orator’s amassing of proof, and then other issues emerge, as it were, by logical consequence; → lat [462] for instance, if a document is brought as proof, then there arises the legal judgment, of which there are five kinds. One is ambiguity, when more than one sense is contained in a document; the Greeks call this amphibolia, because the matter generally arises from common meanings in a noun;⁷² for example: A man bequeathed Taurus in his will. He had a valuable slave of that name. But his principal heir gave to the beneficiary a bull (taurus), since the ambiguous name created this question.’ Again, the question arises from the difference between nouns by one syllable; for example: ‘A man had two kinsmen, one called Lesius and the other Milesius; in naming his heir he said heresestomilesi.’⁷³ The conflict arises from the doubt over the correct separation of the words; one heir, meaning Lesius, separates esto ini, while the other, /173/ extending the noun to make the connection, makes Milesius the beneficiary. → lat [463] There are also the ways included by dialectical proof. There is also the type of question relating to written documents which arises from the letter and the spirit of the document; for instance: ‘A foreigner is forbidden to climb the city wall. In a city under siege, a foreigner goes onto the wall and repels one of the enemy; he is impeached.’⁷⁴ In this case the defendant relies on the spirit of the law, the accuser on the letter.

→ lat [464] The third type of question exists when laws contradict and conflict with each other; for example: ‘Men are not allowed to enter the temple of Ceres. A man who does not assist his parents is liable to punishment. A man enters the temple of Ceres to assist his mother, who is being attacked there; he is impeached.’ The difference between these laws, whose interpretations are contradictory, creates the problem as to which the man should rather have obeyed.

→ lat [465] The fourth question arises from a written document and is called the syllogism; in this we draw something that is not in writing by argument from what is in writing; for example: ‘One is allowed to kill an exile if he is found within the territory from which he has been exiled. A man beats⁷⁵ an exile so found; he is impeached. It is argued by the defense that he was entitled to do what is less than the law allows.’ This question has four modes: from similarity, from consequence, from greater to lesser, and from contrariety. From similarity: for instance, since the penalty for parricide is to be sewn up in a sack,⁷⁶ then this ought to be the penalty for matricide. From consequence: for example, there is a reward for tyrannicide; a man who has persuaded a tyrant to abdicate, claims the reward; he argues that he has equally deserved it, since he has restored liberty to the subjects. From greater to lesser: I have given an example above – if it is lawful to kill an exile then it is lawful to beat him. From contrariety: for example, if a brave man deserves a reward, then a deserter deserves a penalty.

→ lat [466] There remains the question of definition,⁷⁷ which follows from the ambiguity of a document, when some word in a law or a /174/ will is doubtful and becomes clear by definition, for example: ‘Let it be lawful to kill a man caught at night with a weapon; a man caught at night with a stick is killed by a magistrate, who is accused of murder. He defends himself by appeal to this law, but the question arises, What is a weapon?’ This kind of legal question differs from the principal issues, since discussion centers not on the deed which gave rise to the lawsuit but on the definition of something in writing. The principal issues then are separate and distinguished from these legal questions, and these latter are termed incidental issues, while those which give rise to the lawsuit are more correctly called the issues, or fundamentals.

→ lat [467] Now that we have discussed these fundamentals, let us look at debates of the deliberative or demonstrative kind. For there is no doubt that there are three kinds of speech situation and in every one the issue should be treated, although some think that in the deliberative type of speech the issue is the qualitative issue concerned with business, because it considers future time. However, the qualitative issue is to be so regarded that other issues are not denied the possibility of occurring in this type of speech. Now we affirm that issues can be found in this type of speech as long as we*do not take as our yardstick the rebuttal of an assertion, as was shown in the case of conflict. For what or who makes an assertion? Or do spokesmen, for and against, conflict in the usual way when we are allowed to choose one or another amongst an accumulation of arguments? However, the spokesman against a proposal seems to take the part of an accuser. For the person who shows that the case against which he is arguing is dishonorable or disadvantageous surely appears to be accusing the proposal itself. The proponent takes the part of the defender and seeks to acquit his treatment of the matter in hand by argument against his opponent. Therefore the opponent is to be spoken of as accusing, the proponent as rebutting. And thus, by the disagreement between them, the issue can be discerned, as in the case: ‘When his army is continually retreating toward the walls, the commander debates whether to destroy the walls.’ When he orders the walls to be destroyed, does he not seem to face prosecution if the order is carried out? Does it not seem that the army will be disturbed and mutinous at this action? Then there is a conjecture about the outcome of the disturbance. But then, if he says that one should not call it a victory if the city’s defenses have been /175/ destroyed, the definition conies into consideration; we must define what condition of the defenses permits the celebration of a victory. If our adversary then adds: * 1 hat action ought not be taken without the senate’s advice,’ the question of limitation seems to come into it. Therefore it is certain that the role of accuser is correctly assigned to the opponent of a measure, and that in deliberative speeches all the issues readily appear. But we must be aware that the opponent is not to deliver judgment or restrain the proponent, in the manner of a judge; his duty is rather to prevent the proponent from persuading the audience to a course of action, by showing that it is dishonorable or disadvantageous.

→ lat [468] Now in the demonstrative type of speech it is not easy to say how the issue emerges, because blame is not the immediate alternative to praise – the man who is not praiseworthy is not thought blameworthy, nor on the contrary is the man who is free from blame exalted with praises, as if a man should be called praiseworthy because he has not committed murder. There is a term in between, which it is appropriate to call nonpossession, because the man who does not possess praise is not immediately consigned to censure, nor vice versa. The issue of the demonstrative type of speech appears when you set up one speaker to praise and one to censure and link the role of the accuser with the latter and that of the defender with the former. A subtler form of this exists when the listener, poised between praise and vituperation, is placed in the position of being an adversary, as it were. For not before you have shown that a person capable of being praised in fact ought to be praised is the listener free from a sort of accusing frame of mind, which does not yet believe the subject capable of being praised. The man speaking in praise or vituperation⁷⁸ must struggle against this preliminary frame of mind, although in the accumulation of argument mentioned above, a certain conflict⁷⁹ is evident, as when a man is praised by one speaker and accused by another (for example, Cato is praised /176/ by Cicero and accused in two works by Caesar); from which it is deduced that all types of cases are to be closely examined with regard to the issues.

→ lat [469] Having discovered the issue, you will discuss the nature of the case, which is comprised within either a simple or a double or a multiple question. It is simple when in a whole lawsuit we seek one single answer; for example, whether Milo was justified in killing Clodius. The question which, through investigation, arises later – the question, Who set an ambush for whom? – is not a question on its own, but a conjoint one from a double conjecture, which the Greeks call a counteraccusation (antikategoria); but a subsidiary question cannot determine the genus of the case. A double question arises from the matter, as in the speech for Caelius concerning gold and poison,⁸⁰ or by comparison, as in the speech for Roscius, asking whether the son or enemies killed the father. A multiple question arises when a case is made up of many questions, as all the speeches against Verres are made up of questions of extortion, and the speech for Scaurus inquires into the murder of Bostar, the wife of Aris, and the three tithes.⁸¹

→ lat [470] Now we must examine the direction of the case. The direction is a consistency in a particular approach, held throughout a case. There are five types of direction: the simple, the subtle, the figurative, the oblique, and the mixed. The simple exists when the speaker’s words reflect what is in his mind directly; for example, if one praises the deserving and accuses the objectionable. The subtle exists when the words do not directly reflect the mind; for example, a man disowns his son because the son has no friends. The man is not really disowning his son but is frightening him into acquiring friends. The figurative exists when modesty forbids us to say something openly because of its obscenity and it is expressed under some /177/ other representation, dressed in clothing, as it were. The oblique exists when fear prevents us from saying something freely and we show that it must be presented in an underground⁸² manner of speaking. For example: A tyrant who had moved to abolish his tyranny has performed valiantly, and asks as his reward the custody of the armory and the citadel. The magistrates oppose him.⁸³ The mixed kind is made up of both these two, when both shame and fear inhibit freedom of speech. For example: A tyrant had two sons; with the wife of one the father committed adultery; her husband hanged himself; the father ordered the other son to marry her. He refused. In this case one cannot speak freely cither about the incest or the tyranny.⁸⁴ → lat [471] These are the directions, which need to be worked out with care and should inconspicuously permeate the whole speech. They are distinguished from ‘color’ by the fact that color is observed in only one part of a speech, whereas direction is held throughout the case.⁸⁵ → lat [472] The direction is found from the matter in dispute; that is, from the cause of the controversy, which is either in past time – for /178/ example, whether Ajax was killed by Ulysses, which keeps a simple direction – or, if the case concerns present or future time, it allows all the kinds of direction. So direction arises from one’s purpose, and one’s purpose arises from the matter in dispute. The matter in dispute is that which causes uncertainty; for example, in that story of the tyrant, the matter in dispute is the tyrant’s request for the custody of the arms and the citadel. Cicero’s First Philippic illustrates the use of the subtle direction, since with remarkable subtlety it covertly accuses Antony of tyranny, so that while it says everything, it appears to have said it all in good temper.

→ lat [473] Having covered all these points, we turn to look at arguments, by which credence can be brought to a disputed aspect of a question. Credence is formed in three ways: by winning goodwill, by instruction, and by emotional appeal. The first is called the ethical approach, the second the demonstrative, the third the emotional. Although one ought to win goodwill throughout the case, it should be pursued most of all at the commencement, while the end should be most vigorous with appeal to the emotions. Instruction should come particularly from the narrative section of the speech, although by resolving questions and putting forward accusations the argumentative section of a speech works in much the same way. Now I shall begin to discuss arguments.

An argument is a means of producing credence in a matter of doubt. → lat [474] A matter of doubt is an accusation and a rebuttal, or a reason for action and a refutation of that reason. For when you make the accusation ‘You killed a man,’ in order to instruct your audience you will confirm what you say by proof, especially if the accusation is denied. The denial, too, requires proof, although to form credence in the audience one ought to bring forward what are called ‘nonrhetorical proofs,’ such as documents, witnesses, evidence obtained under torture⁸⁶ – matters which I shall keep for later discussion. At the moment I wish to treat the arguments which are inherent in the topic of discussion or those which are contingent to it. Arguments inherent in the topic are the topic as a whole, and some part of it, and its name, which the Greeks call ‘etymology’; contingent to the topic are those matters connected to it in some relative way. These are thirteen in number: by conjugate relationship, /179/ by genus, by forms or species, by similarity, by difference, by contrariety, by adjuncts, by antecedents, by consequents, by contradictions, by causes, by effects, by comparison. The last has three parts: comparison of things greater, less, and equal. It is clear that a principle of relationship is inherent in all these; for a thing is called conjugate to something else,⁸⁷ and genus and species are interrelated. The similar, too, is similar to something, and all the sources of argument take their names from something other than themselves.

→ lat [475] So the matter which is in dispute and is therefore to be discussed should first be defined as a whole, and the arguments handled in the following way. Suppose the topic to be whether eloquence appears to be advantageous. Eloquence is the whole, and therefore should be defined as a whole, thus: ‘Eloquence is the knowledge of how to speak well. But to speak well is advantageous; therefore eloquence is advantageous.’ Dialectic, whom we have just heard, is of assistance in handling this source of argument; from her I believe we know what genus, species, difference, property, accident, and the rest are, which are included in her precepts. Nevertheless, I shall run through them as briefly and summarily as I can.

→ lat [476] Genus, then, is a concept common to many species and differences; for example, animal, which is applied to man, livestock, bird, fish, and other things which are different not only in number but also in species, in that some of them are aerial, some aquatic, some terrestrial, some rational, other irrational; when they are all included under one term, they are called by the name of the genus. → lat [477] Species is a subsidiary of a genus containing elements which are divided from each other only as discrete units; for example, man includes both Cicero and Demosthenes, who share a common species but differ as discrete units.

→ lat [478] Difference is a distinction sufficient for the question; for example, if the question is, What is the difference between a man and a lion? the answer is that man is tame and lion is wild; this answer does not distinguish man from the other tame animals nor the lion from the other wild ones.

→ lat [479] Property is a thing’s unique characteristic; for example, laughter, for laughter is unique to man.

→ lat [480] Accident is that which is in something but is not a part of it /180/ and yet cannot be separated from it so as to exist independently; for example, color in the body, or learning in the mind. → lat [481] Argument from the part is not directed to proving the whole, but to proving some part which includes a question. If the part be proved the whole is not thereby proved; for example, if the eye sees, the whole body does not therefore see, since it is not true that the whole body sees; but that is a discussion in dialectic. Now I shall show how argument is applied from one part to another: If we ought to protect our feet and arms, then all the more carefully should we protect our eyes? Sometimes another argument, from greater to less, can be applied in place of this argument; but the force of the main argument is not upset by this, since nature allows some arguments to be duplicated. This also often happens in figures, which I shall have to discuss later. → lat [482] Argument from the parts is sometimes constructed in this way also; when the idea of partition has been introduced, a number of parts have been put forward, and by rejecting the others we take as our conclusion a single part in which the question lies. For example: ‘You have a horse. You either bought it or were given it or it was born on your property or you stole it. But you did not buy it, nor was it given to you nor born on your property; therefore you did steal it.’ → lat [483] We draw an argument from the name, or by etvmology as the Greeks sav. For example: If a consul is one who consults the interests of the state, what else did Cicero do when he punished the conspirators with death?’⁸⁸ In this situation one ought merely to attend to the origin of the word. → lat [484] From those matters which appear to be contingent to the subject in dispute, arguments are drawn in the following manner: first, from conjugate words when some noun has been put forward as our starting point and we give our approval to something derived from that noun, in different circumstances or times.⁸⁹ For example: ‘If pietv is a virtue, we should praise a deed that is piously done,’ for it is agreed that virtue /181/ is praiseworthy. This source of argument differs from the former in that it is one thing to examine how a name came to be given to something, another to get the force of an argument from the derivation of one word from another. → lat [485] Arguments are drawn from the genus when what is true of the whole genus is applied to a species. For example: ‘If “Woman is fickle and changeable,”⁹⁰ Dido also seems fickle and changeable and can turn from love to hatred.’ This is the way Cicero has constructed his argument: ‘Since you ought to take careful account of all your provinces and allies, gentlemen, then you should take particular account of Sicily.’⁹¹ This source of argument seems to resemble argument from the whole to a part. The difference between them is that arguments from the whole to a part are drawn from a definition, whereas those from genus are drawn from the principle whereby the genus is a genus; and that a whole in a genus loses its wholeness by division, but the genus remains, even when distributed into parts. → lat [486] Arguments are drawn from species or from form to create belief in the general question, as when Cicero says in the Philippics: ‘What is so peculiarly an act of Caesar’s as his law?’ For act is the genus of law, as is shown by its species; that is, by the law enacted by Caesar.⁹² The argument from similarity demonstrates the same thing: ‘Look at the acts of Gracchus, produce the Scmpronian laws, look at the laws of Sulla, of Cornelius.’⁹³ → lat [487] There is the argument from similarity in itself. For instance: ‘As Helen was to the Trojans, you are to your fellow-citizens the seed of war.’⁹⁴ Or again, ‘Like men seriously ill, tossing in the grip of raging fever,’⁹⁵ and so on. The opposite of this /182/ is dissimilarity, which Cicero calls ‘difference’;⁹⁶ this sets forth matters different from each other, but not opposite. Cicero gives an example in the Verrines: ‘You will have to be thought to have done the same thing if you acted for the same reason.’⁹⁷ This is demonstrated in persons and in things and in time and in places and in other details which it would now take too long to mention. → lat [488] There is argument by contraries, as death is to life. For example, Terence’s lines: ‘If you blame a man who has helped to save life, what would you do to a man who caused harm and loss?’⁹⁸ Again, Cicero: ‘If as consul he deserved the death penalty for desertion, what did the legions deserve which deserted him as consul?’⁹⁹ → lat [489] There is an attempt to persuade by conjunction when arguments weak individually take on the force of truth when linked together. For example: ‘What if it happened that you had been poor up to that time? Or greedy? Or foolhardy? Or the enemy of the murdered man?’¹⁰⁰ Since each of these arguments alone is not enough, they are heaped together.

→ lat [490] There is argument by antecedents, like Cicero’s: ‘Since he had no doubts about disclosing what he had in mind, can vou have doubts about what he did?’¹⁰¹ First he mentions tile prediction, which supplies his argument; then he mentions the deed, from which the question at issue has arisen. → lat [491] Arguments by consequents proceed conversely, so that the question at issue is mentioned in the antecedents, and the argument in the subsequent^ in this way: if A has followed, B has preceded it. For instance, if she has had a baby, she has slept with a man.’ There is an example from the Verrines: if the term of a praetor’s edict ends on the calends of /183/ January, why does it not also begin from the calends of January?’¹⁰² → lat [492] There is an argument by contradiction when it is shown that two things cannot coexist; for instance, that a person should be a parasite and yet not be ridiculous – the incompatibility of these two conditions is expressed negatively in this way: ‘It is not the case that Gnatho is a parasite and not ridiculous.’ One type of this source of argument consists in the content rather than the form of words used. For instance: ‘A man who was not only freed from danger by you but most magnificently honored by you is now accused of wanting to kill you in his own home.’¹⁰³ And in the first speech for Cornelius¹⁰⁴ he utters a contradiction: ‘Would he want to trouble, by invoking the law against canvasing for office, the bribe brokers whom he had wanted to be the agents of his elevation?’

→ lat [493] Argument from cause is extensive in scope, and is the subject of a great deal of discussion. For the present it will suffice to show its form with this example: ‘Since this money was handed over in response to your decrees, your judgments, your orders, the question is not whose hand received and counted it but whose injustice compelled its surrender.’¹⁰⁵ Again, there is Vergil’s: ‘Is it from me you are fleeing?’¹⁰⁶ → lat [494] Argument is drawn from effects when there is uncertainty in a case, for example, the action of fate is proved from the fact that men are kept alive even against their wills. For fate is the cause of life or death; to be able to live or die is the effect of fate. Cicero therefore commends the life of Aulus Hirtius,¹⁰⁷ which was cherished by the people, because the people praised Hirtius. This is Vergil’s ‘Fear is the mark of a mean spirit’¹⁰⁸ – for fear is the cause of the spirit’s being mean; this is the result of fear. → lat [495] There is an argument from comparison with a greater. For /184/ example: ‘Can anyone doubt that Verres tried to get money from the Sicilians when he demanded it from Marcus Octavius Ligus?’¹⁰⁹ or Vergil’s: ‘You have the power to bring the closest of brothers into conflict.’¹¹⁰ This argument proves also that strangers too can be brought into conflict, since this is a less difficult thing. Terence says: ‘A man who decides or dares to lie and deceive his father will all the more dare to do it to others.’¹¹¹

→ lat [496] There is argument from comparison with a lesser: For example: ‘Publius Scipio, the pontifex maximus, as a private citizen killed Tiberius Gracchus, who was to some extent undermining the constitution.’ Then follows the question, in which there is a change of scale: ‘Shall we as consuls tolerate Catiline, who wants to lay waste the whole world with fire and slaughter?’¹¹² Terence also uses this argument in the passage: ‘For a slight acquaintance with her, he is taking her death very much to heart.’¹¹³ → lat [497] There is argument from comparison with equals, like Cicero’s: ‘And if we find no less pleasant and bright those days on which we are rescued than those on which we are born’;¹¹⁴ and, in his speech against Piso: ‘There is no difference whether the consul himself disturbs the state by holding disorderly meetings and making destructive laws 01* allows other people to do the same.’¹¹⁵

→ lat [498] Having now set out these arguments briefly, I turn to those which are not the result of the speaker’s invention but are supplied by the case or by the accused; they are located, as I have said, in three areas: in documents, such as official records; in statements of authority, such as those of witnesses; and in statements arising from compulsion, such as those obtained under torture. /185/ → lat [499] Argument is drawn from a document when to prove a doubtful point one cites an autographed surety or a will or contracts or other such documents which are so well known that they do not need examples from a speech. → lat [500] There are statements of authority, such as: ‘Africanus said that Tiberius Gracchus was killed justifiably’; or when a witness is called to lay bare the truth – for example: ‘The speaker brings Gnaeus Pompeius to testify to us about the corn he sent with all speed’ – the authority then is either that of the judge or that of the witness.¹¹⁶ Oracles and other such statements come under this heading. → lat [501] Statements arising from compulsion are credible because they come under torture, or in sleep, or in frenzy or drunkenness, conditions which extract a statement on a topic even against the speaker’s will. When all these things are added to conjecture about the case or the person or the fact – that is, about the testimony or confession or document – then they produce or destroy credence. For the speaker’s case is pondered, his personality is considered, and the quality of the document is compared with him or with the case. → lat [502] Next, the speaker should turn his attention to those topics which either conciliate or arouse his audience, since I have said that this is also a part of winning credence. They are conciliated by regard for either a person or a matter – a person such as the man who is hearing the case or the accused or the speaker or his opponent. Regard for the person hearing the case – for example: ‘That you should show yourself to us and to the Roman people at this time the man you were once before for the Roman people, when as judge you presided over this same court.’¹¹⁷ Regard for the accused – for instance, in the speech for Deiotarus: ‘Whom I and the whole Senate used formerly to extol because of his continuing service to our state.’¹¹⁸

→ lat [503] Regard for the speaker, when he speaks of himself modestly and without pride, as in that passage: ‘When I had been quaestor in Sicily, gentlemen, and had left the province in a manner /186/ which left them a pleasant and lasting memory of my quaestorship and of my name, it happened that they considered me as one appointed to render at least some help to their welfare, just as they would receive the utmost help from many patrons long-established.’¹¹⁹ However, I have discussed this more fully- in the rules for the exordium. Conciliation arises from considering the person of one’s opponent when, by showing his wickedness and arrogance, we win approval for our own modesty. But this is for later discussion. At the beginning of a speech (although I am not listing the sections of a speech but the forms of speech and the ways of winning belief) we give our attention to the power of emotional speech, though it employs its strength especially in commonplace and in epilogues. The beginnings of speeches amongst the early rhetoricians did not have this emotional appeal, as I shall show when I deal with the rules governing the structure of a speech; meantime, I shall outline in general terms and without subdivision into detail the means of moving our hearers by emotional appeal.

→ lat [504] The audience is aroused by pity or hatred or envy or fear or hope or anger and other such sentiments. By pity, when we treat with great grief someone’s misfortunes, when we remind them of the decadence of the time or the greatness of the danger, as in the seventh Verrine: ‘Gentlemen, the fathers whom you see here lay on the threshold, the mothers spent the night in misery before the entrance to the prison, denied a last look at their children, asking nothing but permission to receive the dying breath from their sons’ mouths.’¹²⁰ By hatred, when the opponent’s action is shown to be detestable to good men or to the jury, as when Verres is shown to be boasting of the corruption of the jurors; or again, ‘since he thinks /187/ that you are like him in greed, crime, and perjury.’¹²¹ By envy, which makes the audience spiteful; for example: ‘the fact that his unrestrained criminal nature has readier access to your friendship and that of other men of high birth and distinction than do the honor and integrity of any of us’;¹²² – and again, ‘that this rogue should with impunity enjoy and wallow in the fruits of widespread plunder.’¹²³ It can also inflame the minds of your audience if vou emphasize someone’s tyrannical nature or his intolerable power. → lat [505] Fear is excited by individual or communal perils – individual ones, for instance: ‘This is a trial in which you will pass judgment on the accused, and the Roman people will pass judgment on you’;¹²⁴ communal perils, for example: 1 imagine I see this city, the light of the whole world, the citadel of all nations, destroyed in one sudden conflagration.’¹²⁵ xMinds are stirred by hope when advantages or services are promised, as when Milo’s loyalty is pledged to Pompey; or again: ‘You will have Caelius under an obligation of lifelong service to you and to your children.’¹²⁶ Anger also moves men forcibly, as when Cicero emphasizes that Catiline’s partners are sitting in the senate, and exclaims: ‘Immortal gods! What people are we amongst? What nation is this? What city do we inhabit? They are here, here in our midst, gentlemen.’¹²⁷ Other similar emotions will be incorporated into the speech, and have great persuasive power; however, thev are not intrinsic to the case, and they ought not be too apparent in the orator, or he may seem to be beguiling the judge, not leading him by reason.

→ lat [506] To these devices, which have been cleverly worked out to create credibility, we must add the order in which our material is presented: this is called ‘disposition.’ By it we pay careful attention to what to say in which place in the speech; what should be left out altogether; and how and when and where something should be /188/ said. This part of rhetoric has two aspects, for the structure follows either a natural order or an artificial one devised by the skill of the orator. The natural order occurs when, after the introduction, there follow the narrative, the outline of main points, the presentation of one’s thesis, the argument, the conclusion drawn, and the peroration. The skill of the orator is employed when we distribute the points to be made throughout the speech. Our arrangement, then, is not in chronological order but in the most advantageous order for our case, as was done in the speech for Milo, when Cicero, to dispel the hostile predispositions of the jury, brought in certain questions before his narrative; he made this change from the natural order because of the advantage it brought his case. In the first speech for Cornelius, Cicero rebutted the accusations concerning the period after Cornelius’ tribunate, then went back to discuss the tribunate; this, as I have said, is called an artificial arrangement. → lat [507] But in the speech against Verres he kept the natural, chronological order, so that he presented first Verres’ quaestorship, then the legateship, then the two praetorships, keeping the chronological order which we inevitably follow unless the advantage of the case rejects this approach. But when great and heinous accusations require thorough refutation, the speech for the defense ought to begin with the accusations; for example, in the speech for Cluentius, he first gets the matters of fact out of the way and then comes to discuss the letter of the law, changing the usual order; if he failed to make an attack on the law in his defense of Cluentius, he might seem to be abandoning the case through lack of confidence.

→ lat [508] Having dealt with these two parts of my duties, I must turn my attention to expression. Since this consists in the consideration of individual words, it is distinguished from eloquence, because the latter is the caliber of the whole rhetorical work, while the former is one part of rhetoric, and, according to Cicero, has two foundations, as it were, and two summits.¹²⁸ The two fundamentals are, to speak Latin correctly and clearly; the first of these you learned from Grammar, when you absorbed her cleverness. The summits are, to speak with fluency and embellishment, which come not from natural ability /189/ but from the utmost effort and daily practice, which gives our style not only more richness but greater clarity and brilliance.

→ lat [509] 1 here are two aspects of this subject: one adds luster to the individual words used, the other enhances the quality of the speech by the attractive combination of the words. In examining individual words, we consider whether they are proper, transferred, or borrowed. Proper words are especially the oldest ones, for our ancestors, either because they did not know the embellishments of speech or because they did not make so bold as to use them, customarily used words in their proper significances. But since old words have gone out of usage, we ought not too boldly employ those which have changed with age. So we pass over alucinari and cerritum and caperratum and similar words, and we use those which custom accepts, but not vulgar words, unless required by our topic and our sense; for example, when Cicero, wanting to arouse emotion against cruelty, says: ‘They left them with their gullets slit,’¹²⁹ or ‘to flog to bits ordinary Romans.’¹³⁰ And it is not inappropriate for Vergil to use lycbni [the Greek word for ‘lamps’] instead of lucernae [the Latin word], to avoid banality.¹³¹ → lat [510] But if a thing does not have words proper to itself, words must either be coined or be borrowed from other areas. Words are coined in two ways: either they are thought up by invention or derivation or they are formed by the combination of two words already in use. The commonest mode of invention is borrowing from other languages, as when ‘qualities’ are called poeotetae,¹³² which never was a Latin noun; in this form of invention we must have regard to the ears of our audience and avoid the affectation of novelty. In avoidance of this, Cicero was unwilling to use the word salvator to translate the Greek word soter [savior], but said ‘he who brought salvation,’¹³³ for salvator seemed unduly novel. → lat [511] Words are formed by derivation – paragoge, as the grammarians call it – for example, ‘flowery countryside,’¹³⁴ and ‘broad

/190/

fields are white with bones.’¹³⁵ using albeo, while Horace, with an acceptable and elegant variation, uses albico.¹³⁶ These words are generally used in poetry, though Cicero speaks of ‘grandifcrous estates’¹³⁷ and ‘grandiloquent orators.’¹³⁸ → lat [512] Related to this in our consideration is the question of transferred words,¹³⁹ when a subject either does not have terms appropriate to it or when we want to express something more elaborately than usual. Therefore words are transferred either because of poverty of vocabulary or for the sake of embellishment: for poverty, when we say that a vine ‘is bejeweled’¹⁴⁰ or that the cornfields ‘are prodigal’¹⁴¹ or ‘are in good heart.’¹⁴² There are no words proper to these topics, and unfamiliar words are adapted. Words are transferred for embellishment, as when we say: ‘War suddenly flared up,’ when we could say that it ‘came into existence.’ Again, we can borrow from all our senses, as when we say (from the sense of sight) ‘in the light of liberty and the scent of justice’¹⁴³ and (from hearing) ‘the laws are silent in the midst of arms’¹⁴⁴ and (from taste) ‘sweet name of liberty.’¹⁴⁵ But we should not try unrestrainedly to use these words borrowed from other areas. Nor should the words be transferred from very distant areas, as if one were to say? ‘exuberant Charybdis’ (luxuriosam Charybdim). Nor should one use an indecent similitude, as if one were to say: ‘The state was emasculated by the death of Africanus’; or ‘Clodius is the dung of the senate.’ Into this kind of transfer the poets in particular have woven allegory; so does Cicero, when he says ‘when you threw the senate from the /191/ helm, tossed the Roman people overboard, and as chief privateer with a troop of scabrous pirates set full sail;¹⁴⁶ and, in the speech against Piso, ‘that I, who sailed the ship of state through heavy seas and great storms, and brought it safe to harbor, that I should tremble at the little cloud on your countenance and the foul wind from your colleague?’¹⁴⁷ Using these similitudes he has said at some length what he would probably say more briefly or less elaborately in the words proper to the subject. Again, words are in a way transferred when they express the whole by the part or the part by the whole or a plurality by one or an individual by the plural. The whole is expressed by the part in ‘it struck at the helm’;¹⁴⁸ or ‘that I can be safe within the same walls as you,’¹⁴⁹ when the meaning is ‘in the same house.’ The grammarians call this trope metonymy; the Greeks also cal it catachresis, or as we say, abusio;¹⁵⁰ as when we use ‘the nature of the gods’ for ‘substance.’ → lat [513] In the sequence of words and the coherence of a speech we must ensure that the connection is firmly made, the conclusion comes smoothly, and the language is embellished by some figure.

→ lat [514] Now I shall run through the rules of proper arrangement; here the greatest fault is the failure to avoid hiatus and harshness, dysprophoron, homoeoprophoron,¹⁵¹ polysigma, iotacism, labdacism, mytacism,¹⁵² or the constant and irritating use of any other letter, as in sale saxa sonabant¹⁵³ and casus Cassandra canebat.¹⁵⁴

/192/ Mytacism is the interruption of the sequence of words by the constant use of m; for example, mammam ipsam amo quasi meam animam. Labdacism is the excessive use of l; for example, sol et luna luce lucent alba leni lactea. It is iotacism if you say: Iunio Iuno Iovis iure irascitur. Polysigma is excessive repetition of s; for example, Sosia in solario soleas sarciebat suas. Homoeoprophoron is, for example, o The tute Tati tibi tanta tyranne tulisti.¹⁵⁵ Dysprophoron is, for example, persuasitrices praestigiatrices atque inductrices striges.

→ lat [515] Harshness is especially to be avoided between the last and penultimate words; for example, phaleras ablatas gratis,¹⁵⁶ or if a charioteer were to swear per lora, per flagella, per frena. → lat [516] Hiatuses occur when, as we speak, vowels similar in sound and in length cause disharmony and interruption in the rhythm of the sentence; for example, suscepisse se liberos secundo omine, and when Cicero said in his speech for Milo auctoritate publica armare;¹⁵⁷ Cicero frequently does this deliberately, to conceal his rhetorical skill.¹⁵⁸ → lat [517] Similarly, we should avoid placing three or four long syllables or short syllables in one place, consecutively; nor should the rhythm of the sentence be based on well-known verse rhythms, particularly heroic or iambic rhythms,¹⁵⁹ although Cicero does not avoid them when he says senatus haec intellegit consul videt,¹⁶⁰ nor does he abstain from using the beginning or ending of a heroic line when he says o miserum, cui peccare licebat;¹⁶¹ or, in the Academics, latent ista omnia, Varro, magnis obscurata et circumfusa /193/ tenebris;¹⁶² and in the Verrines he has uttered a line of verse complete except for one syllable, when he says cum loquerer, tanti fletus gemitusque fiebant.¹⁶³ He has not avoided the ending of an elegiac line, as when he says oderat ille bonos.¹⁶⁴ He even ventures into the frivolity of the Phalaecean hendecasyllable when he says successit tibi Lucius Metellus.¹⁶⁵ Cicero, however, may be defended both by the volume of his output and by his own reputation. This fault is at its worst at the ends of sentences. Nevertheless, we should be careful not to forgo a good sentence ending to escape the appearance of using verse, as if one were afraid to say strepitumque plagarum¹⁶⁶ because the pla- is long and would make a good sentence-ending.

→ lat [518] We should also avoid ill-sounding expressions caused by the intrusion or alteration of words. There are undignified examples like ‘stick up your ears, Pamphilus’¹⁶⁷ or ‘with resentment of the rescued girl’;¹⁶⁸ in these instances, the language is coarse. We should also avoid ‘tongue twisters,’¹⁶⁹ which are formed by very harsh letters running together, like the passage in Terence’s Hecyra: per pol quam paucos reperias meretricibus fidelis evenire amatores, Syra.¹⁷⁰ The same fault is thought to be in things beginning with the same letter; for instance, Non fuit istud indicium iudicii simile, iudices;¹⁷¹ or ending /194/ with the same sound, as in fortissimorum, proximomm fidelissimorumque sociorum.¹⁷² We should also avoid a long sequence of short syllables, like that line of Serenus: perit, abit avipedis animula leporis.¹⁷³

→ lat [519] After this brief explanation, I must now discuss the rhythms with which sentences may appropriately be ended. Cicero¹⁷⁴ has thrown these into a certain amount of confusion by saying at one time that they should end with a double trochee;¹⁷⁵ at another time commending the first paeon¹⁷⁶ for the beginning of sentences, and the fourth paeon¹⁷⁷ for the ending; at another time the doch-miac, which consists of a short, two longs, a short, and a long (he gives the example amicos tenes); and again he commends the am-phimacrian¹⁷⁸ rhythm; or again, the dactylic;¹⁷⁹ now the anapaest,¹⁸⁰ now the dithyramb;¹⁸¹ whereas there is no certainty. I shall go through them rather briefly to appear to lead along some paths in this maze.

→ lat [520] When a sentence ends with a monosyllable, one ought to see whether the final syllable is long or short. If it is long, a trochee ought to precede it, as in Cicero’s non scripta, sed nata lex,¹⁸² or debet esse legum in re publica prima vox,¹⁸³ which is a neat ending, however, with the meaning kept in suspense until the end? But if the /195/ final syllable is short, an iamb¹⁸⁴ or an anapaest should precede it, as in Sallust’s tota autem insula modica et cultibus variis est.¹⁸⁵ For a short syllable to follow a short one, or a long syllable a long, is not commendable, as if one were to say ista res mea est or the opposite, as in Cicero’s speech for Ligarius, non tu eum patria privare, qua caret, sed vita vis.¹⁸⁶ He wrote this on purpose, not by mistake. But this rule about monosyllabic ending is better applied earlier in the sentence, before a colon or a comma, and not at the ending of a sentence.

→ lat [521] If the last word is of two syllables the sentence should not end with an iamb, but if the penultimate word is a spondee¹⁸⁷ an iamb should follow it; for example, tenui servos meos; or a pyrrhic¹⁸⁸ instead of an iamb; for example, consul videt. But an iamb followed by a spondee or a trochee makes a good ending; for example, patria continet bonos cives or caput legis. However, we must take care not to put two iambs or an iamb and a pyrrhic at the end; for example, pugnare iuvenes pro parentibus suis. We must also take care that a pyrrhic does not follow a pyrrhic and make four short syllables; for example, perdidi bona mea; or that a pyrrhic is not followed by a trochee or a spondee; for example, conqueritur sua fata or imputat sibi demens. But a trochee and an iamb or a trochee and a pyrrhic (instead of an iamb) make a poor sentence ending; for this gives the ending of an elegiac pentameter, which is inappropriate. What is the difference whether you say omnia nempe vides or aspice facta mea? But two trochees or a trochee and spondee go well at the end of a sentence; for example, haec est bonorum civium magna cura or haec sunt, quae maximi principes sola curant.

→ lat [522] If the last word is of three syllables, the rule is that if you want the ending to flow smoothly the penultimate word should be a trochee and the last a molossus,¹⁸⁹ whether the last syllable is long, /196/ or short as in Cicero’s phrase mare fluctuantibus litus eiectis. If you put a spondee in place of the penultimate trochee, it makes a dreadful ending; for example, mare fluctuantibus rapes eiectis; so it does if you put a pyrrhic¹⁹⁰ in place of the trochee; for example, mare fluctuantibus apex eiectis. Again, the ending is faulty if the first syllable of the molossus is short, even if it is preceded by a trochee; for that gives a clausula of heroic verse; for example, litus amicis....¹⁹¹ Again, it makes a good ending if after a trochee a minor ionic foot¹⁹² is put in place of a molossus; for example, mare fluctuantibus litus agitanti. But in this type of ending we must take care not to put a spondee in place of a trochee in the penultimate word; for then, if you resolve the third syllable of the molossus, you fall into the fault Cicero shows when he says: si te semel ad meas capsas admisero.¹⁹³ But if you have a trochee preceding a molossus and resolve the middle syllable of the molossus, you make a fine ending, such as litus Aemiliae. Again, when a trochee precedes it, the third foot of a molossus can also be resolved to good effect; for example, litus aequabile. Again, if we resolve the long syllable of the preceding trochee and the first syllable of the final molossus, it makes an elegant ending; for example, curas regere animorum.

→ lat [523] Irony (eironeia)¹⁹⁴ is a pretense, commonly used by Cicero, and a striking figure, in which we say one thing but mean another, as in the beginning of the Pro Ligario: ‘A new charge, Gaius /197/ Caesar... Paraleipsis is the act of passing over something, when in ‘passing over’ certain points we nevertheless express them. Apostrophe is a diversion of attention to someone else, when we turn our address to another party in such a way that we thereby inform the jurors. Diaporesis, or hesitation, is a figure we use when, as if hesitating, we ask of the jurors themselves advice on how to begin, as in the Pro Cluentio¹⁹⁵ ‘Gentlemen, I do not know where to turn’; or in the Pro Cornelio:¹⁹⁶ ‘Am I to fight against the wishes of our leading men? Am I to reveal their interests, their plans, their thoughts?’ and so on. → lat [524] Erotema is a figure we use when by repeated questioning we accumulate points on a topic and enlarge upon its unattractive elements. Pysma is a form of question which differs from the preceding figure in that erotema postulates only one answer, whereas to pysma there cannot fail to be several answers; for example: ‘What are our resources for waging war? What assistance shall we have? Who will be willing to come to our aid, when we have treated our allies so harshly’?¹⁹⁷ Diatyposis is description or representation in which we express the very look and appearance of the people or things under discussion, as Cicero does in the Pro Milone: ‘If you were not hearing an account of this but watching a representation,’¹⁹⁸ – and he describes Milo sitting in his chariot, wearing his cloak, accompanied by his wife; and Clodius on horseback leaving his villa with a hand-picked troop of supporters, and so on. Anteisagoge is a counterbalancing admission; this is the figure when something is difficult and we bring forward a counterbalancing idea,¹⁹⁹ as Cicero does concerning King Ptolemy: It is a difficult way to fight, but utterly honest and loyal,’²⁰⁰ and so on. → lat [525] Diasyrmos is disparagement or ridicule; in this figure we destroy our adversary’s argument by ridicule, as in the speech for Murena in that whole /198/ section concerning the civil law,²⁰¹ directed against Sulpicius. Metastasis is a kind of transference, when we transfer some detail from ourselves to someone else, but not in such a way as to settle the whole case on the other person; for then it becomes a problem of status, not a figure.

→ lat [526] So much for figures of thought; now let us get on to figures of speech. However, I want to recall briefly how many kinds of style there are and the number of modes that they use. There is the type which the Greeks call lexis eiroinene, which is suited to every kind of narrative; in this, clause follows clause in the normal sequence of ideas. This is suitable for historical and narrative writing and does not require an inverted or periodic style of expression, but one which flows continuously, as in the speech for Milo: ‘I have killed, I have killed not Spurius Maclius, who.... ’²⁰² and so on. → lat [527] There is another style, which the Greeks call the period (periodos), which puts, as it were, a terminus and limit to the sentence, as in the Caecina speech:²⁰³ ‘If shamelessness had as much power in the forum and the lawcourts as boldness has in the uninhabited countryside, Aulus Caecina would now yield to the shamelessness of Sextus Aebu-tius, just as he then yielded to his bold violence.’ This type of sentence is made up of many members,²⁰⁴ which the Greeks call cola; and of sections, which they call commata. → lat [528] A member is part of a speech, comprising several words with a complete meaning; for instance: ‘Although, gentlemen, I fear it is disgraceful to be afraid when beginning to speak on behalf of a very brave man.... ’²⁰⁵ A section²⁰⁶ is a part of a speech comprising two or more words and not complete in its meaning. However, we call speech ‘cut up’²⁰⁷ when it includes single words complete in meaning; for instance: ‘Who is this Lollius who is not unarmed when with you, even now? /199/ Who is this Lollius, Catiline’s armor-bearer, your bodyguard, the irritant of shopkeepers, a bandit, who throws stones at the senate?’²⁰⁸ And in the Verrines: ‘Those were your chosen comrades, lackeys, quacks, soothsayers, clerks, those were of your company.’²⁰⁹ → lat [529] But the period I have mentioned above²¹⁰ consists of two or three or four members, sometimes even of six,²¹¹ although there are some people who think it can be achieved in one, and call that a ‘monocolar period (monocolos periodos),’ although it is rather just a member. The best type of speech is one made up now of a rounded period, now of a continuous flow, sometimes broken in sections, another time built up in members. → lat [530] The difference between a figure of thought and a figure of speech is that the figure of thought remains even if the order of the words is changed, whereas a figure of speech cannot remain if the word order is changed, although it can often happen that a figure of thought is in conjunction with a figure of speech, as when the figure of speech epanaphora is combined with irony, which is a figure of thought.

→ lat [531] There are other figures of speech,²¹² suitable only for embellishment and decoration of a speech; I shall now deal with these. Antithesis (antitheton) is the association of opposites, when words with conflicting meanings are used as parallels, or matching words are used in opposition; for example, Cicero’s ‘You owned no home, /200/ but you had one; there was money, but you were in want’;²¹³ or if you were to say: ‘In time of peace he was full of hostile energy against his fellow-citizens, in time of war he was full of lethargy toward the enemy.’²¹⁴ Isocolon, a matching of members, is formed not by the conflict of words but by the correspondence of similar words; for example: ‘He built a most sturdy and sightly fleet, raised a most courageous and impressive army, and acquired a most plentiful and reliable body of allies.’²¹⁵ Parison is almost the same; it differs from isocolon in that in isocolon there is an equal number of words in each clause, whereas in parison the other details occur, but with an extra word in one clause or another. → lat [532] Homoeoptoton is a correspondence of case endings; it gets its name from the fact that all the clauses end with the same cases: for example, huic socios vestros criminanti et ad bellum vos cohortanti et omnibus modis ut in tumultu essetis molienti. Homoeoteleuton is defined in a similar way; the difference is that in the former the final words end in the same case as well as in the same sound, whereas in the latter there is only the similarity of sound, regardless of the form of the word.²¹⁶ Paronomasia is a slight change of a verb or a noun when the alteration of a letter or a syllable changes the meaning; for Example: ‘Is he a praetor or a predator?’ Ploké is juxtaposition, when a verb or a noun is repeated in use in different senses; for example: ‘For that day /201/ Memmius, Memmius for that time!’²¹⁷ → lat [533] Palilogy (palillogia) is a reiteration; this figure uses repetition of a verb or a noun without alteration of meaning but with added force because of the repetition; for example: It is we, we I say, we the consuls, who are at fault.’²¹⁸ Epanalepsis is a repetition: this differs from palilogy in that the preceding figure is formed by the repetition of the same part of speech, either juxtaposed or with perhaps one word or another in between, whereas epanalepsis is formed not by a single part of speech but by the association of whatever words one likes,²¹⁹ such as: ‘It is not possible, it is not possible for this state to be free.’ Anadiplosis is another form of repetition; it is at its best when what was at the end of one clause is repeated at the beginning of the next clause, as in Terence’s: ‘Does Demipho deny he is related to this girl? This girl – does Demipho deny he is related to her?’²²⁰ Prosapodosis is the recurrence of a word; that is, when a noun with which a clause (or any other single section of a speech) began, recurs at the end of the section; for example: ‘The commonwealth ought to lay on you the blame for the common ruin.’ → lat [534] Epanaphora is another form of reiteration, when the same part of speech is repeated clause by clause, thus: ‘Verres fixed the accusers, Verres heard the case, Verres gave judgment.’²²¹ Antistrophe is a rearrangement, and differs from the preceding figure in that that one usually begins clauses with the same part of speech, whereas this usually ends with them, as in the speech for Fonteius: ‘The most corn comes from Gaul, the most infantry comes from Gaul, the most cavalry comes from Gaul.’²²² /202/ Symploké is an interweaving; it usually begins with one part of speech and as often ends with one and the same; for example: ‘Who passed the law? Rullus. Who created the ten magistrates he wanted? This same Rullus.’²²³ → lat [535] Polyptoton means ‘from many cases’; this occurs usually when a part of speech begins a sentence, and the same part undergoes changes of case and number; for example: ‘The senate ordered it: it was pleasing to the senate. It is sure that the senate commanded it: it was chosen by the senate.’ Synonymy (synonymia) is the participation of a noun when one word is not adequate to express the importance or greatness of a subject and so we use more than one word with the same meaning. Tautology (tantologia) is the same meaning expressed in many words: it differs from the preceding figure in that the preceding expresses one idea in single words,²²⁴ whereas this uses many words.²²⁵ → lat [536] Climax is an ascending scale; for example, in Cicero’s speech for Milo: ‘He entrusted himself not only to the people but to the senate; not only to the senate but to the public guards and the armed forces; not only to these but to that one power to whom the senate had entrusted the whole charge of the state.’²²⁶ Asyndeton is disconnection, when we dispense with the conjunction with which verbs or nouns Sre linked together and utter each word individually; for example: I look to the enforcing of the edict, the strictness of the praetor, I support the farmer, I want Apronius to suffer the eightfold penalty.’²²⁷ Diezeugmenon we call disjunction, since we separate two or more clauses by the recurrence of different verbs, thus: ‘They will take over Capua and remove the colonists, they will garrison Atelia, they will take Nuceria and Cumae with their numbers, they will make fast the other towns with garrisons.’²²⁸ → lat [537] Antezengmenon is injunction; this differs from the preceding figure in that in the preceding each separate /203/ section of the sentence has its own different verb, but in this many phrases are joined to one verb. For example: ‘Their rank shuns a lowly, their fortune a mean, their nature a base consideration;’ the word shuns’ joins all the words before it.²²⁹ Pleonasm (pleonasmos) is saying more than is necessary, when we add words which are not necessary to explain the subject but are to heighten its importance; for example, ‘That man Cato,’ when it would be enough to have said the name, but we add ‘that man’ to emphasize it. Elleipsis is removal, a figure contrary to the previous one, when we rather pass over what is to be expressed with somewhat fewer words, winning approval by our brevity. These are the figures of speech; however, they should not be studiously crowded together in any single sentence.

→ lat [538] Next to be considered are the precepts of memorization. Although it is accepted that memory is a natural faculty, there is no doubt that it can be assisted by training. This training comprises some brief rules but a lot of practice, the goal of which is that words and ideas should be grasped not only surely but also quickly. We must remember not only what we have found to say but also what our opponent has discussed in his treatment of the case. Simonides, who was both poet and philosopher, is said to have discovered the rules of this subject; for when a banquet hall suddenly collapsed, and the next of kin could not identify those buried, he supplied the seating order and names from memory. From this experience he learned that it is order which makes possible the rules of memory. This order must be exercised on distinct topics, to which should be attributed material forms and representations of ideas;²³⁰ for example, you might remember a wedding by the bride veiled in saffron or a homicide by a sword and arms – images, as it were, put down in, and given back by, the appropriate section of our memory. For just as what is written is contained in wax and letters, so what is committed to memory is written into areas as if in wax and on the written page; /204/ but the memory of things is contained in images as if in letters. → lat [539] But, as I have said, much practice and effort are required for memorization, in which has been discovered the practice of writing for ourselves what we want to remember easily; and if what we must learn is rather long it stays in the mind more readily if it is divided into sections; then it will be of advantage to make symbols in dividually at those points which we particularly want to remember;²³¹ they should not be read out loud, but rather memorized under our breath; and it is clear that memory is better aroused at night than during the day, since the silence of night is a great help and our concentration is not distracted by our senses. Memory is applied to things and to words, but words do not always have to be memorized; unless there is time for this, it will be enough for anyone to hold the matter itself in the mind, especially if nothing comes naturally from the memory.²³²

→ lat [540] I am not unaware that we nowadays commonly call ‘enunciation’ what in former times was called ‘delivery’ The purpose of delivery is to win the goodwill of the listener, to persuade him to believe, and to inflame and move his spirit. Delivery has three parts: voice, countenance, gesture – many would add to these the mouth, its conformation and training. The voice is present by nature and is kept under control by studied skill. Nature supplies the quality and amount of voice we have; study comprehends how you use it and what principles to observe. → lat [541] The excellence of the voice consists in clearness, firmness, and its agreeable sound, and all these are fostered by attention to food, drink, and sexual intercourse,²³³ and especially to physical exercise by walking for a short time and returning quickly. Just as this exercise aids the digestion, so it certainly purifies the voice; an excessively long walk or journey strains and tires it. /205/ After this walk, let us go straight to our studies and give some color to our voice by reading²³⁴ before we speak. → lat [542] You ought not shout at the beginning, but start speaking softly so as to be able to raise your voice in turn.²³⁵ Many people have said that in looking after the voice it is useful to sit and recite a few verses in a slow and solemn voice, then to raise the level of sound gradually step by step and to bring the speech back in the same steps, so that it comes back again to a murmur without any loss. → lat [543] The expression should be varied according to the weight of what one is saving; but it should not be varied according to the extent customary with actors, who twist their faces about in ridiculous movements for the audience. For it is meaning, and not spectacle, which delivery and expression are meant to enhance. Control of the eyes is important in this field; they move in mirth, in concentration, in an expression of threat. They ought not be too much closed by frowning eyebrows nor too much exposed by raised eyebrows, which Cicero bitterly criticizes in Piso.²³⁶ Gestures should not be made too delicately nor should one wiggle the torso effeminately; nor should one toss one’s neck about in an ugly way nor twist it in the blandishments Hortensius used, which, for all their charm, seemed unmanly.²³⁷ In sum, the orator should not use gesture to the extent that actors use it to please their audience. In argument the hand is stretched right out, in discussion or narrative it is drawn in; in this area especially is it important that everything should be seemly, which is achieved more by good sense than by any knowledge of this rule.

→ lat [544] Now in the order of the things I promised I must survey the parts of a speech; some people, rather cleverly, have claimed that there are two, others five, some say more. Those who say that there are two specify one as the instruction of the jurors and the other as the moving of their emotions: in instruction they include both the narrative and the proof of it; they combine the introduction and the peroration as ‘moving the emotions’ because in the beginning of a speech the listener who is to give the judgment must be prepared and swayed. However, those who say that there are five parts of a speech /206/ follow the rational order: for there are the introduction, the narrative, the statement of the case, the proof and argument, and the peroration.

→ lat [545] The exordium is the part of the speech which prepares the listener to get acquainted with the case. Its qualities are three: to make the listener attentive, well-disposed, and receptive. We make him attentive if we say that the subject is important or new or a public issue or one that concerns many people; we make him receptive if we briefly mention something in the case of a kind to give him instruction. We make him well-disposed through either a person or a thing; through a person, either ourselves or the jurors or our adversaries; through ourselves, by mentioning some action of ours likely to win favor, or by nullifying or minimizing some aspect of ourselves likely to alienate sympathy; through the jurors, if we win them over to us either by attractive elements in the case itself or by means external to the case; through our adversaries, in three ways – by bringing them into hatred or unpopularity or contempt; into hatred, by portraying them as wicked and cruel; into unpopularity, by showing that they are unrestrained; into contempt, by showing that they are of no importance. → lat [546] There are two kinds of introduction: the fundamental and the insinuatory. In the fundamental we simply and openly win the audience over to ourselves; in the insinuatory we get around the judge by a guileful introduction. There are four occasions²³⁸ to do this: first, when our case is a bad one; second, when the judge has a prejudice against us; or, when he is tired; or, when acclamation or laughter has caused some interruption.

→ lat [547] Before anything else, we must consider what is the character of our subject matter. There are five possibilities: honorable, base, doubtful, unimportant, and obscure. If it is honorable, we should either not use the fundamental type of introduction or we should conclude it with amplification; if it is base, we should use the insinuatory introduction; if doubtful, we should make the listener well-disposed; if unimportant, we should make him attentive; if obscure, we should make him receptive to instruction.

→ lat [548] The insinuatory introduction is explained in four ways: when we substitute consideration of a topic for that of a person, or a person for a topic, or one topic for another, or one person for another. For /207/ if in a case we must discuss a prostitute, we tell the jury that they must concentrate their attention on the topic rather than the person; or if someone’s client or freedman goes before the law, we urge the audience to consider the person of the patron, not of the dependent, and so on.

→ lat [549] These are the faults of introductions: to be general, to say what can come into any case; to utter ideas common to your opponent, which he also can use; to display affectation by the use of unexpected language and irrelevant topics; to utter redundancies, which make the listener neither attentive nor receptive nor well-disposed; we should also avoid being too long-winded or obscure.

→ lat [550] There are four kinds of narrative: history, fable, fiction, and the statement of law or business. History’ is, for example, Livy’s. Fable is neither true nor credible; for example, the tale of Daphne turned into a tree. Fiction is what tells not of what was done but of what could have been done; for example, in comedies, as where a young man fears his father and falls in love with a prostitute. The legal statement is a description of things which were done or which are credible.

→ lat [551] Narrative has three good characteristics: that it be clear, credible, and brief. Its vices are the contraries of these. It will be clear if we set out our subject truthfully^ without confusion, in familiar terms, without circumlocution;²³⁹ it will be credible if we appear to set out everything naturally and without affectation; it will be brief if the narrative is not poured out with prolixity or beyond what the situation requires.

Some narratives arise from the case itself and the matter in hand; some are incidental to it. Those from the case itself are those without which the subject under discussion cannot be understood; the incidental are those which are brought forward from outside the case for the sake of support or example or amplification or to arouse ill will.

→ lat [552] Some have said that there are five types of narrative: for instance, Theodore of Byzantium²⁴⁰ distinguishes in Greek terms prodiegesis, hypodiegesis, paradiegesis, anadiegesis, katadiegesis. Narrative has seven elements: the person, the cause, the manner, the /208/ place, the time, the material, and the action. Some narratives are called continuous, some segmented. The continuous are those which are delivered in a continuing context without any interruption; the segmented are those interrupted by some argument or digression. We narrate in six ways: exaggerating something, or minimizing it, or exceeding it, or advising, or instructing, or creating favor or ill will.

After narrative one ought to discuss digression, which the Greeks call parecbasis; by this we inflame or mollify the jurors. However, since it is not an integral part of the speech and does not always have to be used, I have decided to pass over it.

→ lat [553] The statement of the case is either our own or our opponents’ or is common to both: our own, for instance I accuse of murder’; our opponents’, for instance He says that I committed murder’; and in common, for instance ‘The question is, Which of us has committed murder?’ → lat [554] Statements of the case are either of fundamental questions or of incidental ones, and are either simple or compound. A simple statement is: ‘You love a prostitute’; a compound: ‘You are lustful and love a prostitute.’ Compound statements are mostly expressed divided into sections, which is done in two ways: either we simply set out what we are going to s^y or we first explain what is agreed between us and our opponent and what is in dispute.

→ lat [555] Statements of the case either are bare statements or are accompanied by a reason; a bare statement is: ‘You aimed at becoming a tyrant’; when accompanied by a reason it is: ‘You aimed at becoming a tyrant; for you have arms in your house.’ Statements of the case are introduced either simply or by induction: simply, for example ‘I shall show that he is a traitor’; by induction, for example – if we recall what we said earlier and introduce what follows – as you might say: ‘Having shown that the law is unjust, I shall now show that it is not advantageous.’ We state a case either by concession or by omission: by concession, when we make a concession of something we said first, but introduce something new, for example ‘I admit for the moment that the man was killed, but I deny that he was killed by this man’; by omission, when we make the transition to another statement in such a way as not to concede the earlier one, for example I have shown that only in the case of his own private affairs is permission for a lawsuit denied to a man of bad reputation; I shall show that in a charge of treason it is not denied.’

/209/ → lat [556] The division is that part which comprises a brief outline of all the sections in the speech; for example, in the speech for Quin-tius:²⁴¹ ‘We deny that you have taken possession of Publius Quintius’ property in accordance with the praetor’s edict.’ The first point is: ‘There was no reason to ask for a proscription of property’;²⁴² the second point: ‘And you could not take possession of them by an edict’; and finally: ‘Nor did they pass into your possession.’ ‘When 1 have shown these three things,’ he said, I shall conclude.’ You notice that the body of the whole speech is set out in order in this outline. The division ought to be such that each single point contains a number of issues in itself; for if the division is carried into each little incidental issue, it will be overloaded, and as a result the jurors will be put off by the matter to be absorbed. That is why Cicero, in this same speech for Quintius, made the division in such a way that each single heading contained more details of the issues. Look at the first point – ‘There was no reason to ask for a proscription of property’ – see how much it contains: ‘Because there was no money owed to Sextus Naevius, and the matter should have been handled in another way since Quintius did not forfeit his surety’;²⁴³ second, ‘because the accuser could not have gained possession of Quintius’ property by edict, because Quintius had an administrator and was defended in his absence and did not hide away and the other creditors were not pressing,’ and ‘because the message expelling him from the estate he shared was sent before the proscription of the estate was ordered,’ and ‘because he was dispossessed of his land by force, against the praetor’s orders.’ From this it is clear that we must include within the division questions which are to be brought forward later in the speech, so that the judge may give us his attention and not be depressed by the quantity of what we are promising to say. We should also note what is agreed between us and the opposite party, and what is to be called into dispute; the items in agreement should be enumerated if they suit our case, as Cicero said in his /210/ speech for Marcus Tullius: ‘My opponent and I agree that Marcus Tullius has suffered a loss; they do not deny that this was caused by armed men using violence; they do not dare to deny that it was done by the household of Publius Fabius; the dispute is whether it was done by treacherous stealth.’²⁴⁴ You see that here he has introduced in the division from conceded points the details which favor his case.

→ lat [557] The section of proof is that section of a speech in which we express in words the arguments themselves – the arguments, that is, with which the case is proved. This section is divided into two parts: proof and refutation. There are two kinds of arguments: artificial and inartificial. The artificial kind has four chief sources of argument: before the act, in the act, around the act, after the act. ‘Before the act’ is divided into seven sources of argument: from the person, from the act, from the cause, the time, the place, the manner, the matter. ‘In the act’ there are twelve sources of argument: from the whole; the part; the genus; the species; from difference, using the seven circumstances (this source of argument contains those from greater to lesser and from lesser to greater); from property; from definition; from name; from synonymy; from the beginning; from the development, or advancement; from the conclusion, or consummation. → lat [558] ‘Around the act’ there are ten sources of argument:²⁴⁵ from likeness – of which there are five kinds: example, similitude, tale, image, and vignette, which is taken from comedy. Some also add allegories, like those of Aesop – to resume: around the act there are sources of argument from the dissimilar; the equal; the contrary by affirmation and negation; and with respect to something, which is represented by four cases, the genitive, the dative, the accusative, and the ablative; by conflicts through possession and loss; from greater to lesser, from lesser to greater; from what precedes; from what is simultaneous, or conjoint; from what follows. There are two /211/ sources of argument after the act: from the result and from the decision. → lat [559] There are other sources of argument from syzygy (apo tes syzygias) – that is, from conjunction or from union – which is, as it were, joined to a quality of a person; for example, if we call one who feels hostile sentiments ‘an enemy.’ Again, from quality; for example: ‘If he acted in anger, he acted without reason.’ From quantity; for example: ‘If he is a serious man, the action was the same.’²⁴⁶ From conjunct matters; that is, from forms and covenants (apo typoseos kai syntheton) – as the rods and chair of office are the insignia of magistrates.²⁴⁷ Again, from partition: that is, from division (apo tes diareseos), through all the circumstances; that is, when we subdivide by persons, times, and the other things which are distinguished and acceptable by diversity.²⁴⁸

→ lat [560] Inartificial arguments are divided into precedents, hearsay, torture, public records, an oath, witnesses, which the orator handles in the same way as the artificial arguments. In arguments we must beware not to damage ourselves in any part, not to be inconsistent, not to be banal, not to use arguments open to our opponent, nor farfetched arguments beyond or beneath what the case calls for.

I have spoken briefly about affirmation; now let us look at the rules of refutation. Our opponent’s plea is refuted either by turning it back on him, when we show that either his whole argument or parts of it apply against his case; or by rebutting it, when we show that his premises are false or that no conclusion follows from them; or by /212/ counterbalancing, when we bring another argument to match the one used against us.

→ lat [561] Of questions there are two kinds: one is called introduced (proegoumene), which we ourselves bring forward to prove; the one brought forward by our opponents, which we have tb rebut, is called necessary (anagkaia). The first kind, which we introduce, is handled in two ways: the questions either are raised separately, one by one; or more than one, interconnected. We raise them in different ways: putting them forward either simply or by subdivision or in figures, which they call dianoiai. This source of argument has many forms; there are almost as many occasions to raise a question of this kind as there are figures of thought. → lat [562] It is done by resolution (that is, by analysis [kat’analysin]) or by addition or by omission or by concession or by refutation (that is, by distinguishing [aphorismos]) or by separation or by correction or by concealed assertion or by supported assertion or by subdivided assertion or by affinity with an earlier question or reply or by inversion (that is, when we take first the question which is really second, and then the first).

→ lat [563] The question which is raised by our opponents can be rebutted in the same ways, and we usually add to it, when our opponent has put forward something either obscurely or with an eye to amplification rather than proof or when by way of objection to him we make a transition to our own case or when we turn our opponent’s assertion to our advantage, which we call peristrophe, or when we handle first the proposition he put second. This must be done either to achieve an effect of elegant variation or when the first assertion is one which is forcefully against our case and should not be put first. In raising an objection we should be careful not to be too full and prolix; although sometimes, to ridicule our opponent if he dwells on his point where there is no point at issue, we should exaggerate this, or show that he is inconsistent. Objections are minimized in three ways: by the addition of words, the altering of words, or the removal of words. An objection is the assertion of an opponent; a counterobjection, the reply to this.

→ lat [564] Recapitulation is a brief repetition of the issues by listing the headings of a case. We should not always use it, but when we have made a subdivision or when a case has developed into a large number of issues, we should recapitulate in such a way that we review the essence of each, not every last detail. We shall use it also in another /213/ part of the speech, when the memory of the judge is perhaps getting overtaxed, and we then call it a digest (epimerismos). Recapitulation is not one of the basic parts of the speech, but is one section of the conclusion.

→ lat [565] The conclusion has three parts: the recapitulation, just mentioned; the exciting of indignation, which we call exacerbation; and the arousing of pity, which we call commiseration and compassion.²⁴⁹ Exacerbation comes from the sources of the arguments; for by these we not only prove things but enhance them. But the arousing of pity (that is, commiseration) is taken from the same sources of argument as exacerbation. Peroration should be used not only at the end of a speech but wherever the subject permits it; that is, by way of digression from the opening remarks or from constant narrative, and even sometimes from the discussion of the basic issues. In the conclusion, on the whole, we should take care that it is brief, if the judge is to be sent straight away with his emotions stirred to cast his verdict, while he is either angry with our adversary or in sympathy with your tears or moved by compassion for the accused.”

But as Rhetoric reached this point, the Cyllenian nodded to her to move across into the company of her sisters and the service of the bride. Seeing his signal, she concluded her address and with ready confidence went to Philology’s throne, kissed her forehead noisily – for she did nothing quietly, even if she wanted to – and mingled with the company and fellowship of her sisters.