previous next
[9] For it is a dog's eloquence, as Appius says, to undertake the task of abusing one's opponent,1 and they who do so should steel themselves in advance to the prospect of being targets for like abuse themselves, since those who adopt this style of pleading are frequently attacked themselves, and there can at any rate be no doubt that the litigant pays dearly for the violence [p. 443] of his advocate. But such faults are less serious than that which lies deep in the soul itself, making the evil speaker to differ from the evil doer only in respect of opportunity.

1 A cognitor is one who represents another. The litigant may abuse his opponent, but that does not justify his advocate in doing so.

Creative Commons License
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.

load focus Latin (Harold Edgeworth Butler, 1922)
hide References (3 total)
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: