Kitap 6
1.40
There was another advocate who was defending a woman who thought to secure a great effect by producing the portrait of her husband, but sent the court into repeated peals of laughter. For the persons entrusted with the duty of handing in the portrait had no idea of the nature of a peroration and displayed it whenever the advocate looked their way, and when at last it was produced at the proper moment it destroyed all the good effect of his previous eloquence by its hideousness, for it was a wax cast taken from an old man's corpse.
1.41
We are also familiar with the story of what happened to Glycon, nicknamed Spiridion. He asked a boy whom he produced in court why he was crying; to which the boy replied, that his paedagogus was pinching him. But the most effective warning as to the perils which beset the peroration is the story told by Cicero pro Cluent. xx. sqq. ep. Quint. VI. iii. 40. about the Caepasii.
1.42
But all these perils may be boldly faced by those who have no difficulty in changing their line of pleading. Those however who cannot get away from what they have written, are reduced to silence by such emergencies or else led into making false statements, as for instance if an advocate should say, He stretches out suppliant hands to embrace your knees, or The unhappy man is locked in the embrace of his children, or See he recalls me to the point, although the person in question is doing none of these things.
