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4. There is, however, a dispute as to whether
there are three kinds or more. But it is quite certain that all the most eminent authorities among
ancient writers, following Aristotle who merely substituted the term public for deliberative, have been
content with the threefold division.
[2]
Still a feeble
attempt has been made by certain Greeks and by
Cicero in his de Oratore,1 to prove that there are not
merely more than three, but that the number of
kinds is almost past calculation: and this view has
almost been thrust down our throats by the greatest
authority2 of our own times.
[3]
Indeed if we place the
task of praise and denunciation in the third division,
on what kind of oratory are we to consider ourselves
to be employed, when we complain, console, pacify,
excite, terrify, encourage, instruct, explain obscurities,
narrate, plead for mercy, thank, congratulate, reproach, abuse, describe, command, retract, express
our desires and opinions, to mention no other of the
many possibilities?
[4]
As an adherent of the older view
I must ask for indulgence and must enquire what was
the reason that led earlier writers to restrict a subject
[p. 393]
of such variety to such narrow bounds. Those who
think such authorities in error hold that they were
influenced by the fact that these three subjects
practically exhausted the range of ancient oratory.
[5]
For it was customary to write panegyrics and denunciations and to deliver funeral orations, while the
greater part of their activities was devoted to the
law-courts and deliberative assemblies; as a result,
they say, the old writers of text-books only included
those kinds of oratory which were most in vogue.
[6]
The
defenders of antiquity point out that there are three
kinds of audience: one which comes simply for the
sake of getting pleasure, a second which meets to receive advice, a third to give judgement on causes.
In the course of a thorough enquiry into the question
it has occurred to me that the tasks of oratory must
either be concerned with the law-courts or with themes
lying outside the law-courts.
[7]
The nature of the
questions into which enquiry is made in the courts is
obvious. As regards those matters which do not
come before a judge, they must necessarily be concerned either with the past or the future. We praise
or denounce past actions, we deliberate about the
future.
[8]
Again everything on which we have to
speak must be either certain or doubtful. We praise
or blame what is certain, as our inclination leads us:
on the other hand where doubt exists, in some cases
we are free to form our own views, and it is here that
deliberation comes in, while in others, we leave the
problem to the decision of others, and it is on these
that litigation takes place.
[9]
Anaximenes regarded forensic and public oratory
as genera but held that there were seven species:—
exhortation, dissuasion, praise, denunciation,
[p. 395]
accusation, defence, inquiry, or as he called it ἐξεταστικόν.
The first two, however, clearly belong to deliberative, the next to demonstrative, the three last to
forensic oratory.
[10]
I say nothing of Protagoras, who
held that oratory was to be divided only into the
following heads: question and answer, command and
entreaty, or as he calls it εὐχωλή. Plato in his
Sophist3 in addition to public and forensic oratory
introduces a third kind which he styles προσομιλητική,
which I will permit myself to translate by “conversational.” This is distinct from forensic oratory and
is adapted for private discussions, and we may regard
it as identical with dialectic.
[11]
Isocrates4 held that
praise and blame find a place in every kind of
oratory.
[12]
The safest and most rational course seems to be to
follow the authority of the majority. There is,
then, as I have said, one kind concerned with praise
and blame, which, however, derives its name from
the better of its two functions and is called laudatory; others however call it demonstrative. Both
names are believed to be derived from the Greek in
which the corresponding terms are encomiastic, and
epideictic.
[13]
The term epideictic seems to me however
to imply display rather than demonstration, and to
have a very different meaning from encomiastic. For
although it includes laudatory oratory, it does not
confine itself thereto.
[14]
Will any one deny the title
of epideictic to panegyric? But yet panegyrics are advisory in form and frequently discuss the interests
of Greece. We may therefore conclude that, while
there are three kinds of oratory, all three devote
themselves in part to the matter in land, and in
part to display. But it may be that Romans are not
[p. 397]
borrowing from Greek when they apply the title
demonstrative but are merely led to do so because
praise and blame demonstrate the nature of the
object with which they are concerned.
[15]
The second
kind is deliberative, the third forensic oratory. All
other species fall under these three genera: you will
not find one in which we have not to praise or
blame, to advise or dissuade, to drive home or refute
a charge, while conciliation, narration, proof, exaggeration, extenuation and the moulding of the minds
of the audience by exciting or allaying their passions, are common to all three kind of oratory.
[16]
I
cannot even agree with those who hold that laudalory subjects are concerned with the question of
what is honourable, deliberative with the question of
what is expedient, and forensic with tie question of
what is just: the division thus made is easy and
neat rather than true: for all three kinds rely on
the mutual assistance of the other. For we deal
with justice and expediency in punegyric and with
honour in (deliberations, while you will rarely find a
forensic case, in part of which at any rate something
of those questions just mentioned is not to be found.
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