hey have already received a proportionate punishment.
Herein, therefore, it will be better and more suitable for an advocate
to act than for the person himself; because when pleading for another he
can praise without the imputation of arrogance, and sometimes can even
reprove with advantage.

Insinuation seems to be not less necessary when the opponent's action
has pre-possest the minds of the judges, or when they have been fatigued
by the tediousness of the pleading. The first may be got the better of
by promising substantial proofs on our side, and by refuting those of
the opponent. The second, by giving hopes of being brief, and by having
recourse to the means prescribed for making the judge attentive. In the
latter case, too, some seasonable pleasantry, or anything witty to
freshen the mind will have a good effect. It will not be amiss,
likewise, to remove any seeming obstruction. As Cicero says of himself,
he is not unaware that some will find it strange that he, who for so
many years had defended such a number of people, and had given no
offense to anyone, should undertake to accuse Verres. Afterward he shows
that if, on the one hand, he accuses Verres, still, on the other, he
defends the allies of the Roman people.

HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT BEGINNING

The orator should consider what the subject is upon which he is to
speak, before whom, for whom, against whom, at what time, in what place,
under what conditions, what the public think of it, what the judges may
think of it before they hear him, and what he himself has to desire, and
what to apprehend. Whoever makes these reflections will know where he
should naturally begin. But now orators call exordium anything with
which they begin, and consider it of advantage to make the beginning
with some brilliant thought. Undoubtedly many things are taken into the
exordium which are drawn from other parts of the cause or at least are
common to them, but nothing in either respect is better said than that
which can not be said so well elsewhere.

THE VALUE OF NATURALNESS

There are many very engaging things in an exordium which is framed from
the opponent's pleading, and this is because it does not seem to favor
of the closet, but is produced on the spot and comes from the very
thing. By its easy, natural turn, it enhances the reputation of genius.
Its air of simplicity, the judge not being on his guard against it,
begets belief, and tho the discourse in all other pa