Cornelii Valerii Ultraiectini In universam benedicendi [sic] rationem tabula, summam artis rhetoricae complectens

There are four persons: the patron, the defendant, the accuser, and the listeners.

From our own person.

our own, or our adversaries', or the listeners'. From our own person; if we mention our duty without arrogance: or if we say that we were led to speak by kinship, friendship, public utility, or some other honorable cause or necessity, without any hatred or malice, or ambition, or greed: or if we diminish our own talent and faculty of speaking, and say that we are unequal to the talents of our adversaries, so that we appear to have relied more on the goodness of the cause and equity and the goodwill of the listeners than on our own eloquence. One intending to speak against us will deny from these same places that we were led by an honorable cause, etc.

From the person of the defendant.

We capture goodwill from the person of the defendant in these places: first from his probity, such as when we say he is a good and liberal man: then from his calamity and infirmity, either of mind or age or condition; such as if he is oppressed due to a lack of friends, if he is an old man, a pauper, a ward, mute, blind, an invalid; if a woman, a widow, etc.

From the person of our adversary.

From the person of our adversary, if we bring him into hatred, as if we accuse him of pride, cruelty, perfidy, malice: or into envy, as if we bring forward his excessive power, wealth, resources of friends, nobility, and faction: or into contempt, if we reveal his indolence, negligence, luxury, and cowardice. Sometimes the patron of the adversary will also give an exordium if we have made his eloquence and grace suspect to the judge.

From the person of the judge or listeners.

From the person of the judge or listeners, if we teach that we study their utility and reputation and authority, and praise them without adulation. In a suit, we adapt the praise of the judge to the utility of our cause, as Cicero did, who sought pardon for M. Marcellus and Q. Ligarius.