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[1] The third kind of proof, which is drawn into the service of the case from without, is styled a
παράδειγμα by the Greeks, who apply the term to all comparisons of like with like, but more especially to historical parallels. Roman writers have for the most part preferred to give the name of comparison to that which the Greeks style
παραβολή, while they translate
παράδειγμα by example, although this latter involves comparison, while the former is of the nature of an example.
[2] For my own part, I prefer with a view to making my purpose easier of apprehension to regard both as
παραδείγματα and to call them examples. Nor am I afraid of being thought to disagree with Cicero, although he does separate comparison from example.
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For he divides all arguments into two classes, induction and ratiocination, just as most Greeks
2
divide it into
παραδείγματα and
ἐπιχειρήματα, explaining
παράδειγμα as a rhetorical induction.
[3] The method of argument chiefly used by Socrates was of this nature: when he had asked a number of questions to which his adversary could only agree, he finally inferred the conclusion of the problem under discussion from its resemblance to the points already conceded. This method is known as induction, and though it cannot be used in a set speech, it is usual in a speech to assume that which takes the form of a question in dialogue.
[4] For instance take the following question:
What is the finest form of fruit? Is it not that which is best?
This will be admitted.
What of the horse? What is the finest? Is it not that which is the best?
Several more questions of the same kind follow. Last comes the question for the sake of which all the others were put:
What of man? Is not he the finest type who is best?
The answer can only be in the affirmative. [5] Such a procedure is most valuable in the examination of witnesses, but is differently employed in a set speech. For there the orator either answers his own questions or makes an assumption of that which in dialogue takes the form of a question.
What is the finest fruit? The best, I should imagine. What is the finest horse? The swiftest. So too the finest type of man is not he that is noblest of birth, but he that is most excellent in virtue.
All arguments of this kind, therefore, must be from things like or unlike or contrary. Similes are, it is true, sometimes employed for the embellishment of the speech as well, but I will deal with them in their proper place;
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at present I am concerned with the use of similitude in proof. [6] The most important of proofs of this class is that which is most properly styled example, that is to say the adducing of some past action real or assumed which may serve to persuade the audience of the truth of the point which we are trying to make. We must therefore consider whether the parallel is complete or only partial, that we may know whether to use it in its entirety or merely to select those portions which are serviceable. We argue from the like when we say,
Saturninus was justly killed, as were the Gracchi
; from the unlike when we say, [7]
Brutus killed his sons for plotting against the state, while Manlius condemned his son to death for his valoulr
;
4
from the contrary when we say,
Marcellus restored the works of art which had been taken from the Syracusans who were our enemies, while Verres
5
took the same works of art from our allies.
The same divisions apply also to such forms of proof in panegyric or denunciation. [8] It will also be found useful when we are speaking of what is likely to happen to refer to historical parallels: for instance if the orator asserts that Dionysius is asking for a bodyguard that with their armed assistance he may establish himself as tyrant, he may adduce the parallel case of Pisistratus who secured the supreme power by similar means.
[9] But while examples may at times, as in the last instance, apply in their entirety, at times we shall argue from the greater to the less or from the less to the greater.
Cities have been overthrown by the violation of the marriage bond. What punishment then will meet the case of adultery?
Fluteplayers have been recalled by the state to the city which they had left. How much more then is it just that leading citizens who have rendered good service to their country should be recalled from that exile to which they have been driven by envy.
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[10] Arguments from unlikes are most useful in exhortation. Courage is more remarkable in a woman than in a man. Therefore, if we wish to kindle someone's ambition to the performance of heroic deeds, we shall find that parallels drawn from the cases of Horatius and Torquatus will carry less weight than that of the woman by whose hand Pyrrhus was slain, and if we wish to urge a man to meet death, the cases of Cato and Scipio will carry less weight than that of Lucretia. These are however arguments from the greater to the less.
[11] Let me then give you separate examples of these classes of argument from the pages of Cicero; for where should I find better? The following passage from the
pro Murena
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is an instance of argument from the like:
For it happened that I myself when a candidate had two patricians as competitors, the one a man of the most unscrupulous and reckless character, the other a most excellent and respectable citizen. Yet I defeated Catiline by force of merit and Galba by my popularity.
[12] The
pro Milone
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will give us an example of argument from the greater to the less:
They say that he who confesses to having killed a man is not fit to look upon the light of day. Where is the city in which men are such fools as to argue thus? It is Rome itself, the city whose first trial on a capital charge was that of Marcus Horatius, the bravest of men, who, though the city had not yet attained its freedom, was none the less acquitted by the assembly of the Roman people, in spite of the fact that he confessed that he had slain his sister with his own hand.
The following
9
is an example of argument from the less to the greater:
I killed, not Spurius Maelius, who by lowering the price of corn and sacrificing his private fortune fell under the suspicion of desiring to make himself king, because it seemed that he was courting popularity with the common people overmuch,
and so on till we come to,
No, the man I killed (for my client would not shrink from the avowal, since his deed had saved his country) was he who committed abominable adultery even in the shrines of the gods
; then follows the whole invective against Clodius. [13] Arguments from unlikes present great variety, for they may turn on kind, manner, time, place, etcetera, almost every one of which Cicero employs to overthrow the previous decisions that seemed to apply to the case of Cluentius,
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while he makes use of argument from contraries when lie minimises
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the importance of the censorial stigma by praising Scipio Africanus, who in his capacity of censor allowed one whom he openly asserted to have committed deliberate perjury to retain his horse, because no one had appeared as evidence against him, though he promised to come forward himself to bear witness to his guilt, if any should be found to accuse him. I have paraphrased this passage because it is too long to quote.
[14] A brief example of a similar argument is to be found in Virgil,
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But he, whom falsely thou dost call thy father,
Even Achilles, in far other wise
Dealt with old Priam, and Priam was his foe.
[15] Historical parallels may however sometimes be related in full, as in the
pro Milone
13
:
When a military tribune serving in the army of Gaius Marius, to whom he was related, made an assault upon the honour of a common soldier, the latter killed him; for the virtuous youth preferred to risk his life by slaying him to suffering such dishonour. And yet the great Marius acquitted him of all crime and let him go scot free.
[16] On the other hand in certain cases it will be sufficient merely to allude to the parallel, as Cicero does in the same speech
14
:
For neither the famous Servilius Ahala nor Publius Nasica nor Lucius Opimius nor the Senate during my consulship could be cleared of serious guilt, if it were a crime to put wicked men to death.
Such parallels will be adduced at greater or less length according as they are familiar or as the interests or adornment of our case may demand. [17] A similar method is to be pursued in quoting from the fictions of the poets, though we must remember that they will be of less force as proofs. The same supreme authority, the great master of eloquence, shows us how we should employ such quotations.
[18] For an example of this type will be found in the same speech
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:
And it is therefore, gentlemen of' the jury, that men of the greatest learning have recorded in their fictitious narratives that one who had killed his mother to avenge his father was acquitted, when the opinion of men was divided as to his guilt, not merely by the decision of a deity, but by the vote of the wisest of goddesses.
[19] Again those fables which, although they did not originate with Aesop (for Hesiod seems to have been the first to write them), are best known by Aesop's name, are specially attractive to rude and uneducated minds, which are less suspicious than others in their reception of fictions and, when pleased, readily agree with the arguments from which their pleasure is derived. Thus Menenius Agrippa
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is said to have reconciled the plebs to the patricians by his fable of the limbs' quarrel with the belly. Horace
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[20] also did not regard the employment of fables as beneath the dignity even of poetry; witness his lines that narrate
What the shrewd fox to the sick lion told.
The Greeks call such fables
αἶνοι (tales) and, as I have already
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remarked, Aesopean or Libyan stories, while some Roman writers term them
apologues,
though the name has not found general acceptance. [21] Similar to these is that class of proverb which may be regarded as an abridged fable and is understood allegorically:
The burden is not mine to carry,
he said,
the ox is carrying panniers.
[22]
Simile has a force not unlike that of
example, more especially when drawn from things nearly equal without any admixture of metaphor, as in the following case:
Just as those who have been accustomed to receive bribes in the Campus Martius are specially hostile to those whom they suspect of having withheld the money, so in the present case the judges came into court with a strong prejudice against the accused.
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[23] For
παραβολή, which Cicero
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translates by
comparison,
is often apt to compare things whose resemblance is far less obvious. Nor does it merely compare the actions of men as Cicero does in the
pro Murena
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:
But if those who have just come into harbour from the high seas are in the habit of showing the greatest solicitude in warning those who are on the point of leaving port of the state of the weather, the likelihood of falling in with pirates, and the nature of the coasts which they are like to visit (for it is a natural instinct that we should take a kindly interest in those who are about to face the dangers from which we have just escaped), what think you should be my attitude who am now in sight of land after a mighty tossing on the sea, towards this man who, as I clearly see, has to face the wildest weather?
On the contrary, similes of this kind are sometimes drawn from dumb animals and inanimate objects. [24] Further, since similar objects often take on a different appearance when viewed from a different angle, I feel that I ought to point out that the kind of comparison which the Greeks call
εἰκών, and which expresses the appearance of things and persons (as for instance in the line of Cassius
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—
should be more sparingly used in oratory than those comparisons which help to prove our point. For instance, if you wish to argue that the mind requires cultivation, you would use a comparison drawn from the soil, which if neglected produces thorns and thickets, but if cultivated will bear fruit; or if you are exhorting someone to enter the service of the state, you will point out that bees and ants, though not merely dumb animals, but tiny insects, still toil for the common weal.
Who is he yonder that doth writhe his face
Like some old man whose feet are wrapped in
wool?)
wool?)
[25] Of this kind is the saying of Cicero
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:
As our bodies can make no use of their members without a mind to direct them, so the state can make no use of its component parts, which may be compared to the sinews, blood and limbs, unless it is directed by law.
And just as he draws this simile in the
pro Cluentio from the analogy of the human body, so in the
pro Cornelio
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he draws a simile from horses, and in the
pro Archia
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from stones. [26] As I have already said, the following type of simile comes more readily to hand:
As oarsmen are useless without a steersman, so soldiers are useless without a general.
Still it is always possible to be misled by appearances in the use of simile, and we must therefore use our judgment in their employment. For though a new ship is more useful than one which is old, this simile will not apply to friendship: and again, though we praise one who is liberal with her money, we do not praise one who is liberal with her embraces. In these cases there is similitude in the epithets
old and
liberal, but their force is different, when applied to ships and friendship, money and embraces. [27] Consequently, it is allimportant in this connexion to consider whether the simile is really applicable. So in answering those Socratic questions which I mentioned above,
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the greatest care must be taken to avoid giving an incautious answer, such as those given by the wife of Xenophon to Aspasia in the dialogue of Aeschines the Socratic: the passage is translated by Cicero
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as follows:
[28]
Tell me, pray, wife of Xenophon, if your neighbour has finer gold ornaments than you, would you prefer hers or yours?
Hers,
she replied.
Well, then, if her dress and the rest of her ornaments are more valuable than yours, which would you prefer, hers or yours?
Hers,
she replied.
Come, then,
said she,
if her husband is better than yours, would you prefer yours or hers?
At this the wife of Xenophon not unnaturally blushed; for she had answered ill in replying that she would prefer her neighbour's gold ornaments to her own, since it would be wrong to do so. If on the other hand she had replied that she would prefer her ornaments to be of the same quality as those of her neighbour, she might have answered without putting herself to the blush that she would prefer her husband to be like him who was his superior in virtue. [30] I am aware that some writers have shown pedantic zeal in making a minute classification of similes, and have pointed out that there is lesser similitude (such as that of a monkey to a man or a statue when first blocked out to its original), a greater similitude (for which compare the proverb
As like as egg to egg
), a similitude in things dissimilar (an elephant, for instance, and an ant both belong to the genus
animal ),and dissimilitude in things similar (puppies and kids, for example, are unlike the parents,
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for they differ from them in point of age). [31] So too they distinguish between contraries: some are opposites, as night to day, some hurtful, as cold water to a fever, some contradictory, as truth to falsehood, and some negative, as things which are not hard when contrasted with things which are hard. But I cannot see that such distinctions have any real bearing on the subject under discussion.
[32] It is more important for our purpose to note that arguments may be drawn from similar, opposite, and dissimilar points of law. As an example of the first, take the following passage from the
Topica of Cicero,
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where he argues that a man to whom the usufruct of a house has been left will not restore it in the interests of the heir if it collapses; just as lie would not replace a slave if he should die. The following will provide an example of an argument drawn from opposite points of law:
The absence of a formal contract is no bar to the legality of a marriage, provided the parties cohabit by mutual consent, since the signing of a formal document will count for nothing in the absence of such mutual consent.
An instance of an argument drawn from dissimilar points of law occurs in the
pro Caecina of Cicero
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: [33]
If anyone had driven me from my house by armed violence, I should have ground for action against him. Have I then no ground, if he has prevented me from entering my house?
Dissimilar points may be illustrated by the following example
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:
Because a man has bequeathed all his silver to a given person and this bequest is regarded as including silver coin as well as plate, it does not follow that he intended all outstanding debts to be paid to the legatee.
[34] Some draw a distinction between
analogy and
similarly, but personally I regard the former as included under the latter. For the statement that the relation of 1 to 10 is the same as that of 10 to certainly involves similarity,
[100] just as does the statement that a bad citizen may be compared to an actual enemy. But arguments of this kind are carried still further:
If connexion with a male slave is disgraceful to the mistress of the house, so is the connexion of the master with a female slave. If pleasure is an end sought by dumb animals, so also must it be with men.
[35] But these arguments may readily be met by arguments from dissimilars:
It is not the same thing for the master of the house to have intercourse with a female slave as for the mistress to have intercourse with a male slave; nor does it follow that because dumb animals pursue pleasure, reasoning beings should do likewise.
Or they may even be met by arguments from opposites; as for instance,
Because pleasure is an end sought by dumb animals, it should not be sought by reasoning beings.
[36] Authority also may be drawn from external sources to support a case. Those who follow the Greeks, who call such arguments
κρίσεις, style them
judgments or
adjudications, thereby referring not to matters on which judicial sentence has been pronounced (for such decisions form examples or precedents), but to whatever may be regarded as expressing the opinion of nations, peoples, philosophers, distinguished citizens, or illustrious poets. Nay,
[37] even common sayings and popular beliefs may be found to be useful. For they form a sort of testimony, which is rendered all the more impressive by the fact that it was not given to suit special cases, but was the utterance or action of minds swayed neither by prejudice or influence, simply because it seemed the most honourable or honest thing to say or do.
[38] For instance, if I am speaking of the misfortunes of this mortal life, surely it will help me to adduce the opinion of those nations who hold that we should weep over the new-born child and rejoice over the dead. Or if I am urging the judge to shew pity, surely my argument may be assisted by the fact that Athens, the wisest of all states, regarded pity not merely as an emotion, but even as a god. Again,
[39] do we not regard the precepts of the Seven Wise Men as so many rules of life? If an adulteress is on her trial for poisoning, is she not already to be regarded as condemned by the judgment of Marcus Cato, who asserted that every adulteress was as good as a poisoner? As for reflexions drawn from the poets, not only speeches, but even the works of the philosophers, are full of them; for although the philosophers think everything inferior to their own precepts and writings, they have not thought it beneath their dignity to quote numbers of lines from the poets to lend authority to their statements.
[40] Again, a remarkable example of the weight carried by authority is provided by the fact that when the Megarians disputed the possession of Salamis with the Athenians, the latter prevailed by citing a line from Homer,
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which is not however found in all editions, to the effect that Ajax united his ships with those of the Athenians.
[41] Generally received sayings also become common property owing to the very fact that they are anonymous, as, for instance,
Friends are a treasure,
or
Conscience is as good as a thousand witnesses,
or, to quote Cicero,
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In the words of the old proverb, birds of a feather flock together.
Sayings such as these would not have acquired immortality had they not carried conviction of their truth to all mankind. [42] Some include under this head the supernatural authority that is derived from oracles, as for instance the response asserting that Socrates was the wisest of mankind: indeed, they rank it above all other authorities. Such authority is rare, but may prove useful. It is employed by Cicero in his speech on the Replies of the Soothsayers
34
and in the oration in which he denounced Catiline to the people,
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when he points to the statue of Jupiter crowning a column, and again in the
pro Ligario,
36
where lie admits the cause of Caesar to be the better because the gods have decided in his favour. When such arguments are inherent in the case itself they are called supernatural evidence; when they are adduced from without they are styled supernatural arguments.
[43] Sometimes, again, it may be possible to produce some saying or action of the judge, of our adversary or his advocate in order to prove our point. There have therefore been some writers who have regarded examples and the use of authorities of which I am speaking as belonging to
inartificial proofs, on the ground that the orator does not discover them, but receives them readymade. But the point is of great importance.
[44] For witnesses and investigation and the like all make some pronouncement on the actual matter under trial, whereas arguments drawn from without are in themselves useless, unless the pleader has the wit to apply them in such a manner as to support the points which he is trying to make.
Institutio Oratoria. Quintilian. Harold Edgeworth Butler (Translator). Cambridge, Mass.. 1920-1922.
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