[33]
The praise or denunciation of laws requires greater
powers; indeed they should almost be equal to the
most serious tasks of rhetoric. The answer to the
question as to whether this exercise is more nearly
related to deliberative or controversial oratory
depends on custom and law and consequently varies
in different states. Among the Greeks the proposer
of a law was called upon to set forth his case before
a judge,1 while in Rome it was the custom to urge
the acceptance or rejection of a law before the public
assembly. But in any case the arguments advanced
in such cases are few in number and of a definite
type. For there are only three kinds of law, sacred,
public and private.
1 i.e. a court of nomothetae appointed by the Athenian assembly, who examined the provisions of the proposed law.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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