the general interests of the republic. And if we promise that we will
in a very short time prove our own cause; and if we explain the
whole of the examination into the excuses alleged, or the different
examinations, if there be more than one.

We shall render our hearers willing to receive information, if we
explain the sum total of the cause with plainness and brevity, that is
to say, the point on which the dispute hinges. For when you wish to
make a hearer inclined to receive information you must also render him
attentive. For he is above all men willing to receive information who
is prepared to listen with the greatest attention.

XVII. The next thing which it seems requisite to speak of, is, how
topics intended to enable the orator to work his way into the good
graces of his hearers ought to be handled. We must then use such a
sort of address as that when the kind of cause which we are conducting
is that which I have called astonishing; that is to say, as I have
stated before, when the disposition of the hearer is adverse to one.
And that generally arises from one of three causes: either if there
be anything discreditable in the cause itself, or if any such belief
appears to have been already instilled into the hearer by those who
have spoken previously; or if one is appointed to speak at a time when
those who have got to listen to one are wearied with hearing others.
For sometimes when one is speaking, the mind of the hearer is
alienated from one no less by this circumstance than by the two
former.

If the discreditable nature of one's cause excites the ill-will of
one's hearers, or if it be desirable to substitute for the man on whom
they look unfavourably another man to whom they are attached; or, for
the matter they regard with dislike, another matter of which they
approve; or if it be desirable to substitute a person for a thing, or
a thing for a person, in order that the mind of the hearer may be led
away from that which he hates to that which he loves; and if your
object is to conceal from view the fact that you are about to defend
that person or action which you are supposed to be going to defend;
and then, when the hearer has been rendered more propitious, to enter
gradually on the defence, and to say that those things at which the
opposite party is indignant appear scandalous to you also; and then,
when you have propitiated him who is to listen to you, to show that
none of all those things at all conc