The persons concerned are very proper objects for affecting the mind of the judge, for the judge does not seem to himself to hear so much the orator weeping over others’ misfortunes, as he imagines his ears are smitten with the feelings and voice of the distrest.  Even their dumb appearance might be a sufficiently moving language to draw tears, and as their wretchedness would appear in lively colors if they were to speak it themselves, so proportionately it must be thought to have a powerful effect when exprest, as it were, from their own mouths.  Just so, in theatrical representations, the same voice, and the same emphatic pronunciation, become very interesting under the masks used for personating different characters.  With a like view Cicero, tho he gives not the voice of a suppliant to Milo, but, on the contrary, commends his unshaken constancy, yet does he adapt to him words and complaints not unworthy of a man of spirit:  “O my labors, to no purpose undertaken!  Deceiving hopes!  Useless projects!”

This exciting of pity, however, should never be long, it being said, not without reason, that “nothing dries up so soon as tears.”  If time can mitigate the pangs of real grief, of course the counterfeit grief assumed in speaking must sooner vanish; so that if we dally, the auditor finding himself overcharged with mournful thoughts, tries to resume his tranquility, and thus ridding himself of the emotion that overpowered him, soon returns to the exercise of cool reason.  We must, therefore, never allow this kind of emotion to become languid, but when we have wound up the passions to their greatest height, we must instantly drop the subject, and not expect that any one will long bewail another’s mishap.  Therefore, as in other parts, the discourse should be well supported, and rather rise, so here particularly it should grow to its full vigor, because that which makes no addition to what has already been said seems to diminish it, and a passion soon evaporates that once begins to subside.

Tears are excited not only by words but by doing certain things, whence it is not unusual to present the very persons who are in danger of condemnation, in a garb suitable to their distress, together with their children and relations.  Accusers, too, make it a custom to show a bloody sword, fractured bones picked out of wounds, and garments drenched in blood.  Sometime, likewise, they unbind wounds to show their condition, and strip bodies naked to show the stripes they have received.  These acts are commonly of mighty efficacy, as fully revealing the reality of the occurrence.  Thus it was that Caesar’s robe, bloody all over, exposed in the Forum, drove the people of Rome into an excess of madness.  It was well known that he was assassinated; his body also lay in state, until his funeral should take place; yet that garment, still dripping with blood, formed so graphic a picture of the horrible murder that it seemed to them to have been perpetrated that very instant.