The Education of an Orator, Vol. II

kind of commencement in second hearings; we rarely use them in first hearings, unless perhaps we are speaking before someone to whom the matter is already known from elsewhere.

5 The only purpose of the principium commencement is to prepare the listener so that he may be more accommodating to us in the remaining parts. Most authors agree that this is best done in three ways: if we make the listener well-disposed, attentive, and docile. This is not because these goals should not be maintained throughout the entire action, but because they are especially necessary at the beginning, through which we gain entry into the mind of the judge so that we may proceed further.

6 We derive good-will either from the persons involved or from the causes themselves. The theory regarding persons is not threefold, as many have believed, consisting of the litigant, the adversary, 7 and the judge. For the exordium is sometimes also accustomed to be drawn from the advocate of the case. Although he says fewer and more sparing things about himself, a great deal of weight is placed in this: if he is believed to be a good man. For in this way it will happen that he appears to bring not the zeal of a lawyer, but almost the trustworthiness of a witness. Therefore, he should be seen as having come to plead primarily driven by a sense of duty, whether of kinship or friendship, and above all, if possible, for the sake of the republic or at least for some not insignificant moral example. This, without a doubt, must be done much more by the litigants themselves

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