[98]
Another common device is to introduce an
oath, like the speaker who, in defending a disinherited man, cried, “So may I die leaving a son
to be my heir.”1 But this is not a figure which
is much to be recommended, for as a rule the
introduction of an oath, unless it is absolutely
necessary, is scarcely becoming to a self-respecting
man. Seneca made a neat comment to this
effect when he said that oaths were for the
witness and not for the advocate. Again, the
advocate who drags in an oath merely for the sake
of some trivial rhetorical effect, does not deserve
much credit, unless he can do this with the
masterly effect achieved by Demosthenes, which I
mentioned above.2
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.