[70]
I would have my younger readers realise that these
words are penned for their special benefit that they
may not desire to adopt a different style in their
exercises from that in which they will be required to
speak, and may not be hampered by having to unlearn what they have acquired. For the rest if they
are ever summoned to take part in the counsels of
their friends, or to speak their opinions in the senate,
or advise the emperor on some point on which he
[p. 515]
may consult them, they will learn from practice
what they cannot perhaps put to the credit of the
schools.
IX. I now come to the forensic kind of oratory,
which presents the utmost variety, but whose duties
are no more than two, the bringing and rebutting
of charges. Most authorities divide the forensic
speech into five parts: the exordium, the statement of
facts, the proof, the refutation, and the peroration.
To these some have added the partition into heads,
proposition and digression, the two first of which
form part of the proof.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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