1. The orator's task, when a civil question has been proposed, is this: first, to understand the question itself—whether it is general or specific, simple or compounded of several parts, absolute or comparative; then, once he has understood it, to discover topics suited to it for the partition, and to fit moral or natural arguments to these; next, to judge concerning what he has discovered, to reject whatever has turned up as not very serviceable, and then to give a fixed order to those things he has tested by his judgment. For although many pertinent things may have been discovered, still, unless they are placed, according to their quality and importance, in fixed and, as it were, lawful seats, they will either get in the way or be of no great use. Thereupon the rhetor must fit to the ordering the setting-forth of the matter, which consists of two parts, the quality of the structure and the quantity of the words. All these things memory will take up, which both most of the Greeks and our master Marcus Tullius affirm to be necessary for the orator above all, in this way, as I think: I come now to the treasury of all things, memory, which, unless it is brought in as a guardian over what has been discovered and ordered, all things, even the most splendid in the orator, will, we understand, perish. Memory will be followed by delivery, a thing that, as Demosthenes holds, is among the orator's tasks either the first or the only one, and which consists of two things, the movement of the body and the sound of the voice. To have touched on these summarily—what the orator's tasks are—is enough. It remains to see what his end is.

2. The end, as I think, is in all things that to which everything is referred, for the sake of which all the rest comes about; by the Greeks it is called telos. This is asked about even in almost all the disputations of the philosophers—what the end of living well is, whether virtue or pleasure, and so on. The proper end, then, of the orator's task different men have approved differently; for to some it has seemed that the height of the orator's task lies in speaking well, to some in speaking rightly, to some in speaking truly, to some in persuading. Indeed, even those who supposed the end of the orator's task to be speaking well or speaking truly do not deny that the end of these very things is to persuade, so that the end of the orator's task is to speak well, and the end of speaking well is to persuade. Therefore, as if by the consent of all, the end of the orator's task is to persuade. Because this seemed liable to fall into a cavil—for the orator does not always persuade, nor, if he sometimes cannot persuade, does he lose the faculty and the name of orator—Hermagoras, to escape the cavil, added something, and left it written thus: that the end of the orator's task is to persuade, so far as the condition of the matters and persons allows.

3. Thereupon another cavil arises from the same word "to persuade"—first devised, to be sure, by Plato, much treated in the Gorgias, but afterward plied much more shamelessly by certain technical writers, detractors of Hermagoras. For they deny that to persuade is the proper end of the orator's task, but one almost common to all; for the mathematicians too persuade about the things that have fallen within their knowledge, and physicians persuade about the things contained within their art; craftsmen too, and shopkeeping artisans, and any of this kind, can persuade anyone probably about what they do, as if they gave a reasoned account. Therefore (they say) it is not a complete end which has only commonality and lacks propriety; the act of persuading is common to many, and for that reason to persuade is not the proper end of the orator's task. To this cavil too Hermagoras very fittingly stood in the way: for he says that the orator's task is to persuade, so far as the condition of matters and persons allows, but only in civil questions. For the questions of physicians and philosophers and others of this kind are placed outside the civil rule, which the Greeks call politikē (the political).

4. Now civil questions are those whose discernment can fall within the common conception of the mind, which the Greeks call koinē ennoia (common notion). But that what this condition is, which we wish to have shown, may be more easily understood: all things whatsoever that are of such a kind that not to know them is a matter of shame, and which—even when we are ignorant of them—we nonetheless display before ourselves with a pretense, as though we knew them, whenever they are called into doubt, produce a civil question. What I mean is of this kind. If one asks about the weight of some thing, if you do not seem to know how many pounds it is, there is no need to blush; if about its length, if you do not seem to know how many feet it is, there is no need to blush; nor about other things of this kind, which it would take long to go through; and therefore, whenever such things come into doubt, although they make a question, they cannot make a civil one. But when it is asked whether something is just or unjust, honorable or dishonorable, to be praised or to be blamed, to be rewarded or to be punished, useful or useless, and the like, there is no one—even one placed outside all art and knowledge—who would not blush if he seemed not to know these things. Hence it is that all hold it as a settled conviction, or at least do not hesitate to persuade others, that they can conceive in their minds the distinction of just and unjust, honorable and dishonorable, and of the rest we mentioned above. And therefore the doubts that arise in matters of this kind are called civil questions, as being not the property of a few but common to all. Since this is so, those questions are rightly called civil which can be grasped by the common notion (koinē ennoia), and these are the ones in which the orator must occupy himself and excel.

5. There are two primary and, as it were, general modes of civil questions, of which the one is called by the Greeks thesis, the other hypothesis. To the former we can give no name but the Greek one; to the latter, even though we may seem to have given a "Latin" name, we have not: for we call it a controversy (controversia), a name that can fall on a thesis as much as on a hypothesis; for in each there is a question—that is, a controversy. Moreover, the signification of "hypothesis" is also made clear from its very compounded name: that it is something which is hypo tēn thesin, that is, under that genus as a kind of species.

On the difference between thesis and hypothesis
A thesis is a matter that admits of rational consideration without the specification of a person; a hypothesis—or controversy, to use the inexact name—is a matter that admits of rational dispute with the specification of a person. But they will be made clearer by an example. A thesis is a question of this kind: "whether one ought to go to sea, or to pursue philosophy"; a hypothesis is a question of this kind: "whether a reward ought to be decreed to Duilius." Nor are there lacking those who here too bring a charge against Hermagoras—and Apollodorus among the first, who denies that a hypothesis is anything other than a thesis, and that the specification of persons is of no moment—although Hermagoras seems to have distinguished both these kinds of question: for (Apollodorus says) the question of a hypothesis is no less unlimited and boundless than that of a thesis. For when it is asked whether or not Orestes ought to be punished, it is not the person that makes the question, but the deed, and it makes no difference whether it is asked thus, whether or not a matricide ought to be punished: and if this is so, there is no difference at all between hypothesis and thesis.

6. But our authorities reply thus: first of all, that the quality of persons brings a difference to questions, "and" that to the hypotheses themselves—that is, to controversies—it often happens that certain things seem to be left punished or unpunished, honored or unhonored, not so much from the quality of the matter as from the standing of the person; next, that these two kinds of question differ in this also, that in a thesis there is a discernment of what some matter is like, in a hypothesis a dispute, and as much as there is between discernment and dispute, so much is there of difference between thesis and hypothesis; then, that in a thesis it is asked what all ought to do, in a hypothesis what one or another, or a few more—at any rate a definite number of men—ought to do. There is added also this difference, that in a thesis we inquire, as though ignorant, what is best to do, whereas in a hypothesis we defend, as though knowing. Then, that every thesis is about the future, a hypothesis rarely so—nay rather, it never makes a question except about the past or about something that is now being done. For no one can either be made a defendant unless he has done, or is said to have done, something, nor seek a reward or anything of the kind unless he has already deserved it or contends that he has deserved it. To this point they object the defendants for tyranny and treason and poisoning and parricide not yet carried out, and whatever can be devised in the same manner. In this zeal for objecting they are mistaken: for even in the case of one who is a defendant for treason, the inquiry is not about a future thing—that is, about the treason itself—but about whether he undertook the design of treason, which certainly came before; and likewise about tyranny, whether he plotted tyranny; and about a parricide not carried out, and about poisoning. Therefore in a hypothesis the question always arises about the past or the present, but in a thesis, on the contrary, never except about the future. If these things are so, the diversity of each has been sufficiently shown.

7. Now, since enough has been said about the difference between general and specific questions, and the thesis has been separated from the hypothesis so as to differ in fact as much as in name, it seems to follow that we should say what it is that produces a hypothesis, that is, a controversy. It is, then, the circumstance of things, which Hermagoras calls peristasis, without which no controversy at all can exist. But what circumstance is can be grasped more easily by its partition than by its definition. There are, then, seven parts of circumstance—that is, of peristasis—which Hermagoras calls moria peristaseōs (the parts of circumstance), and Theodorus stoicheia tou pragmatos, that is, the elements of the matter, because from their conjunction questions arise, just as we see nouns and verbs arise from the conjunction of letters. But whether they are more rightly called stoicheia (elements) or moria (parts), let us, setting aside the controversy over the name, say what they themselves are. They are these: who, what, when, where, why, in what manner, by what aids—which the Greeks call aphormai. Now the rational gathering-together of all or most of these forges a question. But of course the proper character of each must be set out.

8. "Who" has the signification of the person, which is regarded in two ways, from the name and from the quality. From the name in this way: who? Camillus, Gaius Marius, Lucius Sulla. From the quality: who? A rich man and a poor man, a general. Now the discernment is definite in the names of persons, indefinite in their qualities, since into the naming nothing falls but the name, but into the quality fall both fortune and age and condition and training and the rest, which are unlimited in number. "What" has the signification of the deed, which is seen as done or said or thought by someone, as being done, said, or thought, as about to be done, said, or thought, as good or bad, honorable or dishonorable, just or unjust, useful or the opposite, necessary or not, great or small, customary or new. "When" has the signification of time, as "by day or by night, on a holy or an unholy day." Also from accidents, which sometimes give time its quality, as: "in time of war or in time of peace, in sedition or in concord, under liberty or under domination," and whatever else can fall in the same manner. "Where" has the signification of place, as "in the city or outside it, in a sacred place or a profane one, on the sea or on land." "Why" signifies the cause of doing or saying or thinking—a thing, in my opinion, especially necessary for establishing a question. "In what manner" has its signification from the demonstration of the deed, of what is being done or will be done, as "secretly or openly, by force or by guile," and whatever similar things fall in the same manner. Aphormai, which we call "aids," have the demonstration of those things through which something is said to have been done, such as a noose, a sword, poison, letters, a go-between, instructions, a slave, an accomplice, an assassin. The rational concurrence of all, or as I said above of most, of these articles will make a civil question.

9. Rational questions are those that Hermagoras calls logical. For he thinks it better that they be named thus than "verbal," because they are called "logical" by the technical writers not from the signification of "word" but from the signification of "reason"—since otherwise logos sometimes signifies "word" and sometimes "reason." Therefore rational, or logical, questions arise in four modes; for these things are asked in them: whether it is, what it is, of what sort it is, whether it ought to be brought into court. When it is asked whether it is, this kind of question Hermagoras calls stochasmos, which we can call "conjecture"; the same Theodorus calls peri tēs ousias, that is, "about the substance." For nothing can seem either to have been done that has not had substance, nor to be about to be that will not have substance. Some have called this kind of question, from that through which it is asked, "whether it is." The second rational question is the one Hermagoras calls "definition," Theodorus peri tēs idiotētos, that is, "about the property"; some call it "what it is," and some "about the same and the other," that is, peri tou autou kai thaterou. The third rational question all call by one name, "quality."

10. About the fourth there is great dispute, the one we spoke of above concerning bringing into court. For most deny that it exists, since it aims at this, that the matter may not be able to come into question; but among all writers the authority of Hermagoras prevails, who both thinks it a question and one necessary above all, and much agitated in the forum, and to be brought in also under the other states at the very first encounter, if the condition of the case allows. For I lay down that nothing is so much in the interest of those against whom a trial is directed as to turn aside the trial. Moreover, that very turning-aside of the trial has some appearance of a trial. For if the matter were so conducted that, as often as anyone did not wish a case to be brought in, this lay in his own power, there would be no question; but since there are always those who hinder, that very dispute—by which the one calls into court and the other refuses the trial—makes a question: which kind of controversy Hermagoras calls metalēpsis; of our authors a few have called it "reprehension," most "transference"—both, to be sure, following a reasoning. Those who said "reprehension" did so because, just when the case is being brought into court, it is reprehended and, as it were, drawn back; those who said "transference," because the defendant does not altogether exclude the action, but, in order to excuse the present condition of the action, transfers it to another kind of trial, either one already held or one to come.

11. There are likewise four other questions, which the inventors call nomikai, and we "legal." Their names are "letter and intent" (scriptum et voluntas), which they call rēton kai dianoian; antinomia, which we call "the conflict of contrary laws"; "ambiguity," which they call amphibolia; "inference," which they call syllogismos. But these we shall treat a little later more carefully, in such a way that the signification of each is more clearly expressed and the species are added to the genera.
Meanwhile it seems to me we should say by what articles and, as it were, knots every question is in turn bound together so as to come to the perfect form of itself. There is some statement (dictum), which the Greeks name phasis; it is split into two parts, and one of them is kataphasis, the other apophasis. The kataphasis (for it is not enough to express "affirmation") we can call the charge made by the word—that is, the word by which the accusation is pressed, as: "you struck, you betrayed, you killed." But what they call apophasis we call the denial of the charge that the accuser has pressed, as: "I did not strike, I did not kill, I did not betray." From these two—the statement and the response, or the charge and the denial—the middle question arises in this way: the charge is "you killed," the denial "I did not kill," the question "whether he killed." But to withdraw now from the conjectural mode, the charge is "you killed unjustly," the denial "I did not kill unjustly," the question is "whether he killed by right." Or in some legal state: the charge is "it was not lawful for you to do this by the law," the denial is "it was lawful for me to do this by the law," the question is "whether it was lawful to do this by the law."

12. This, as we have hitherto called it, some have called the "question," some have named the "state" (status), evidently from the fact that in it both the beginning of the question and its sum consist. For at first, as it were at a distance, when it is said on the one side that the deed was done, on the other that it was not done, there is no fight, but as it were the rehearsal of a coming fight; then, when one has come nearer and, as it were, to close quarters, the middle question intervenes upon the mutual altercation and dispute, whether or not it was done. In this each party takes its stand, having dropped what it said before: whence the name "state" was imposed on that question. This same thing Theodorus calls kephalaion, using a transfer, evidently, from the chief (capital) part of the body, because in this gathering also of what has been said on either side there is produced, as it were, a certain head of the whole controversy.

13. Following upon this is a topic either equally or even more necessary, by which is shown what the cause is, what the point at issue (the "containing" element), and what the matter contended about. The cause Hermagoras calls aition; the "containing" element synechon; the matter contended about krinomenon. The cause, then, is that which, unless it has come before, a controversy cannot arise. What I mean is this. "A son is disowned by his father"—this is not a controversy, because no cause has come before, why he should be disowned by his father. Finally, let us add a cause, and at once a controversy is produced: "He swore that he would not take a wife, and is disowned." His having sworn became the aition, that is, the cause why he deserved the disowning. The synechon, that is, the "containing" element, is what seems to be brought forward to refute the aition—that is, to rebut the cause—as in this matter: "A general killed a soldier who had sworn that he would desert, and becomes a defendant for the killing." For here the aition is, that is, the cause of the trial, that he killed; for he would not become a defendant unless he had killed. The synechon is, that is, the "containing" element, that on account of which he said he had killed, namely the oath by which the soldier had sworn that he would desert. This Hermagoras sometimes calls synechon, that is, the "containing" element, from the fact that the whole defense of the matter is contained by it; sometimes he calls it aition aitiou, as it were the cause of the cause. For just as the cause of his being a defendant is that he killed the soldier, so the cause of his killing is that the soldier swore that he would desert.

14. Now, since we know what the cause is and what the "containing" element is, let us see also what the matter contended about is, that is, what the krinomenon is. It is nothing other than the examination of the synechon, that is, of the "containing" element. What I mean is this; for I think we must persist in the same controversy, that what we hand on may be the clearer. The aition is that this general killed the soldier; the synechon is that on which the defendant relies, that is, the reason on account of which he says he killed: and it is that the soldier swore he would desert. The krinomenon is the examination of this very thing that the defendant brought forward for his defense. In which the inquiry is whether there was some other cause for the general to kill the soldier, and this is put forward as a pretext: so that he may seem to have been killed not because he swore, but for whatever cause, of grudge or of envy. This article can also be handled in this way: whether, even if he swore, this was nonetheless too little a just cause why he ought to have been killed. And the whole discernment of the whole synechon that is brought to bear on the aition is called the krinomenon. Yet it sometimes happens that in a single controversy not once, but rather often, the aition and synechon and krinomenon—all of them themselves—are handled, turned over in alternation, as in this controversy: "Ulysses is a defendant for harming the commonwealth, because he killed the suitors." For here the aition is that he killed; the aition aitiou, or synechon, is that he killed those who were plundering his goods and lying in wait against his wife's chastity; the krinomenon is whether, even though these things came before, he nonetheless killed for some other cause than the one he pretexts, or whether he ought to have killed, uncondemned, even men who had deserved most ill of him. Then to this krinomenon Ulysses brings another synechon, by which he says he slew them at Minerva's command; then this very synechon becomes a krinomenon, since it is asked whether he killed not because of Minerva's command, and whether in such a matter he ought to have obeyed even Minerva. Now the aition is the accuser's proper topic, the synechon the defender's, the krinomenon common to both.

15. Thereupon I think we should say in what manner and in how many modes a controversy becomes asystaton (without a standing): although those that have no state ought not even to be called controversies, but irrational tangles, that is, aloga (illogical). They become asystata, then, in four modes. The first, when something is lacking from the circumstance (and what the force of circumstance is, we have said above), that is, when the questions lack either a cause or a person or a place or some one of those things by which we said circumstance is produced. But this kind of asystaton cannot fall within scholastic material, for the reason that no theme can even be invented when the circumstance is lacking. In real life, however, it sometimes happens that some one of these is lacking, and through the imprudence of the prosecutor a ruined case comes before the judge. The second mode of asystaton is the one they call kat' isotēta (by equality): for which, although we cannot give a Latin name, we ought nonetheless to understand its force. For when the same things are said on either side and they are distinguished by no thing, not even a small one, then a tangle of this kind, on account of the equality of each side, entangles the state, as: "Two neighboring young men, who had beautiful wives, met each other at night: they accuse each other in turn of adultery." For whatever the one party says, the other must say the same: "It is verisimilar that you wished to commit adultery, because you are a young man." "It is verisimilar that you too wished it, because you are a young man." "It is verisimilar, because I have a beautiful wife." "It is verisimilar of you too, because I too have a beautiful wife." "The nearness of neighbors gave you the opportunity." "And the same nearness gave you the opportunity." "Why did you fall upon me by night?" "But why did you fall upon me?" There is nothing by which it may be distinguished, and therefore whichever of them, whether he accuses the other, accuses himself, or whether he clears himself, defends the one he seems to accuse.

16. The third kind of asystaton is the one the Greeks call kat' heteromereian (one-sided), that is, when the defendant has no defense, and either no probable color is found in the deed or one too little probable is found: whence my teacher Democrates too used to say that even those controversies in which a color is long sought have no state. But he was more rigid; we, if anything even moderately probable is brought forward for the defense, admit it. But if the case is evidently riddled through, as it should be, we shall hiss it off the stage as kat' heteromereian (one-sided). Sometimes certain questions arise, especially in real life, which grant the height of opportunity to the accuser, none to the defendant; but these we call not controversies but commonplaces: for in them there is not the proof of a charge, but rather the exposing of an evident and manifest crime as a thing laid open. The fourth mode of asystaton is the foggiest of all, so much so that it is wont sometimes to steal up even on learned men: for it has some appearance of probable and self-consistent material. It is of this kind, in which the judge cannot find a reasoned ground for passing sentence. This the Greeks call aporon (without a way out); but let us add an example: "A man was demanding interest from another as if on money lent; the other confessed that he had received the money, but as a deposit, and therefore was willing to restore the principal without interest. Meanwhile, while the case was pending, a law was passed about new account-books [cancelling debts]: the one demands it back as if a deposit, the other retains it as if a loan." For I do not see what there is here that the judge can follow in passing sentence, since the claimant says now that he lent, now that he deposited, and the other says now that he received it as a deposit, now as a loan, and neither uses his own earlier statement, but each uses the other's past statement.

17. It seems also to pertain not a little to the matter to know the figures of controversies, by which they differ from one another, so that it may be the more evident in what manner we should handle each. There are, then, four schemata, that is, figures of controversies: endoxos, which we can call "of good repute"; amphidoxos, which we can call "of mixed repute from both, good and bad"; paradoxos, which we can call "of bad repute"—although some, speaking Greek not very carefully, take "paradox" for those things that are of good repute; whence commonly they call even Olympic victors and the other winners of the Greeks' sacred contests paradoxoi, led more by custom than by reason: for, as I think, paradoxon is what is para tēn doxan, contrary to good repute. Finally, although elsewhere we might prefer to approve that common signification of this name, nonetheless in this place—just as many new things are named by the technical writers as well as by the philosophers—we ought to take it not according to the usual habit of speech but according to the condition of the precept. The fourth species of controversy is the one called in Greek adoxos, which we can call not, as commonly, "of bad repute," but "of no repute," that is, lowly and sordid. But these will be evidently shown by the examples set forth.

18. An endoxos controversy is of this kind, in which both the person and the matter are honorable, as: "Scipio, the Carthaginians being conquered, seeks as a reward to watch the games crowned with laurel." Both the person of Scipio is honorable, and what is sought is not improper. Amphidoxos is the one in which either the baseness of the matter stains the honorableness of the person—as if the same Scipio should seek, by way of reward, the death of Tiberius Asellus: for the petitioner's person is honorable, what is sought dishonorable—or the contrary, as if a disowned son had acted bravely and should seek, by way of reward, to return to his father's house: the person that seeks is dishonorable, that of the disowned son, the matter sought honorable, that he return to his father's house. Paradoxon is the kind of controversy, as I defined above, in which both are dishonorable, the matter as much as the person, as: "A man accused of unchastity acted bravely: he seeks as a reward the death of his accuser." For both the person of the petitioner is dishonorable, since he was accused of unchastity—although he detracted something from the baseness in that he acted bravely—and the thing he seeks is improper. Adoxon is the kind of controversy without any repute on either side, lowly and sordid: "A poor man was selling clothes; another poor man came forward to claim them and said they had been taken from him by theft. The seller says that he stripped those clothes from an adulterer caught in the act: they accuse each other in turn, the one of adultery, the other of theft." For here both the persons are lowly, those of poor men, and the matter that they seem to have done in the suit is mean—the claiming and recognition of clothes. And although the charge of adultery, which is not mean, intervenes, nonetheless, because more things in the circumstance (en tē peristasei) are lowly and sordid, they claim for themselves the character of the whole controversy. Now to distinguish these figures of controversies is suited both to many other purposes and, above all, to this, that we may be able to find a mode of prefatory speaking—that is, of beginning—suited to the quality of the material. For the appearance of the beginning ought not to be the same in an endoxos theme and in an amphidoxos and a paradoxos and an adoxos one, but to each its own form must be assigned.

19. Now first, in the endoxos kind of material, Hermagoras denies that there should be any preface. For if (he says) we are wont to make a preface for the sake of winning goodwill, then in a theme of good repute, such as that of Scipio, those before whom we are about to speak are kindly disposed, and there is no point in preparing what is already prepared. But to me it seems far otherwise—and I would say it with all respect to so great a man; for authority is not always to be regarded, especially when it is overcome by reason. I judge, then, that nothing prevents us from making a preface in the endoxos kind of material; for there is no harm, I think, in making kindly judges more kindly by a preface, just as, when we see them offended with our adversaries, we try to increase that offense by speaking. Finally, we see that flute-players and lyre-players and the other artists of this kind, although they do not promise a speech, nonetheless say a few prefatory words. Because before the action a speech is altogether cut short and headless that begins from the matters themselves without an opening, we shall use openings even in controversies of good repute, but shorter and a little more upright and confident and full of dignity—without boasting, however, lest the matter give birth to ill-will—such as that passage in Marcus Tullius against the harangue of Metellus, in which he seems to exult against the tribune of the plebs: Where do you wish even to make your stand? For thus, I think, I shall pursue you as you flee, since I may not engage with you as you resist. Which assuredly he would never have begun to say so magnificently right at the start in the exordium, unless both the person of the speaker himself were honorable and the matter of which he was about to speak not improper.
And likewise in another place, when he was speaking about the punishment of the conspirators: I see, conscript fathers, that the faces and eyes of you all are turned upon me, and thereafter all things of this kind, so that the speaker seems, both by his own splendor and by these matters of which he is about to speak as most honorable, deservedly to be confident. Most openings of this kind in Gaius Gracchus (how much nobler he was!) are of a nobler spirit: which no one would tolerate from a Marcus Erucius, or from someone of the Cannae-rabble, if he were speaking them.

20. In the amphidoxos kind of material a certain moderation will have to be used when we draw out our openings, so that we both diminish the baseness that lies beneath, by toning it down, and increase the dignity that is in the matter or the person, by giving it luster: thus we shall mingle the two in varying measure, so that the honorableness of the one part may cover the baseness of the other—yet not with so much boasting as in that earlier kind of material, but as it were with a certain confident modesty. If the baseness is in the matter, we shall, as far as can be done, call the judge away to the dignity of the person; if it is in the person, we shall flee, as from a perilous to a safer place, to the dignity of the matter—but summarily and lightly yielding, so that we may seem rather to look down on the suspicion of fear than to fear it. We shall labor at this, that, the dignity of the matter and of the person being mingled, we may seem to have more confidence in the honorableness than fear in the baseness. But that this kind of beginning may be grasped more clearly, I will give an example that Marcus Tullius had when he spoke for Marcus Scaurus: for the controversy was amphidoxos, inasmuch as he relied on the dignity of the person of Marcus Scaurus, but was pressed by the baseness of the charge of extortion. Both the orator at once so mingled in the opening that he both covered the baseness of the charge with the dignity of the person, yet not too lavishly nor exultantly, but so as to express some suspicion even of fear: It was most to be wished for Marcus Scaurus, judges, that, no man's hatred being incurred, without offense and trouble, and so on.

21. In the paradoxos, that is, in a theme of bad repute, where the dignity both of the person and of the matter will alike be in trouble, longer openings will have to be used, and effort given to clearing away suspicions, and we must speak in a lowly way both in our thoughts and in our words—coming rather close to flattery—and with a complaint, as of a false charge brought against us and a false ill-repute contrived against us through envy; with the whole body too more humbly bearing itself: composed to modesty, with downcast face, with eyes gazing on the ground, and that gaze not keen, but, if we can, even with a feigned weeping.
In the adoxos, that is, in the lowly kind of material, the openings ought to be very close to ordinary conversation, neither with thoughts fetched from on high nor with words ornamented beyond measure nor with a weightier structure, but as it were loose and simple. But the force of all the thoughts that we apply to these openings ought to be this: to call the matter back from particularity to commonality, and to say that it is in the interest of all that that matter be vindicated, for the reason that, the smaller each thing is, the more frequently and the more it can befall among many; and that the greatness of matters and persons ought not to be regarded so much as the rule of the equitable and the inequitable, the true and the false: for the force of these is the same in the smallest things as in the greatest. Most such openings are in Demosthenes, in those books that are entitled "private" (idiotici), and more in Lysias, and in certain of our own ancients. Certainly Marcus Tullius, when he spoke for Archias, began in no other way.