Book 3
5.1
VIII. I am surprised that deliberative oratory also has been restricted by some authorities to questions of expediency. If it should be necessary to assign one single aim to deliberative I should prefer Cicero's de Or. II. lxxxii. 334. view that this kind of oratory is primarily concerned with what is honourable. I do not doubt that those who maintain the opinion first mentioned adopt the lofty view that nothing can be expedient which is not good.
5.2
That opinion is perfectly sound so long as we are fortunate enough to have wise and good men for counsellors. But as we most often express our views before an ignorant audience, and more especially before popular assemblies, of which the majority is usually uneducated, we must distinguish between what is honourable and what is expedient and conform our utterances to suit ordinary understandings.
5.3
For there are many who do not admit that what they really believe to be the honourable course is sufficiently advantageous, and are misled by the prospect of advantage into approving courses of the dishonourable nature of which there can be no question: witness the Numantine treaty and the surrender of the Caudine Forks. Mancinus was surrounded on retreat from Numiantia in 137 B. C., while the surrender at the Caudine Forks took place in 321 B. C. In both cases the Senate refused to ratify the humiliating treaties which had been made the price of the release of the Roman armies.
