''Captatio benevolentiae'' (

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

for "winning of goodwill") is a

rhetorical Rhetoric is the art of persuasion. It is one of the three ancient arts of discourse (trivium) along with grammar and logic/dialectic. As an academic discipline within the humanities, rhetoric aims to study the techniques that speakers or writ ...

technique aimed to capture the goodwill of the audience at the beginning of a speech or appeal. It was practiced by Roman orators, with

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, orator, writer and Academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises tha ...

considering it one of the pillars of oratory.

Examples

For example, Roman historian

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding i ...

(Titus Livius) begins his prologue with a description of his own insignificance against the importance of the Roman people and history of Rome. By preaching his own humility, and especially by comparing himself to the much greater importance of the Roman people (his audience), he hopes to gain their favor at the start of his work. The opening words of St. Paul's speech addressed to King

Herod Agrippa II Herod Agrippa II ( Roman name: Marcus Julius Agrippa, ; AD 27/28 – or 100), sometimes shortened to Agrippa II or Agrippa, was the last ruler from the Herodian dynasty, reigning over territories outside of Judea as a Roman client. Agrippa ...

and his sister Berenice, in Acts 26:2-3, have been described as "a standard ''captatio benevolentiae''". During the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...

, it was used in court cases to gain the judge's favor, with lavish praise of the judge's wisdom considered most effective by

Guillaume Durand Guillaume Durand, or William Durand (c. 1230 – 1 November 1296), also known as Durandus, Duranti or Durantis, from the Italian form of Durandi filius, as he sometimes signed himself, was a French canonist and liturgical writer, and Bishop o ...

. In parallel, the techniques of the ''captatio benevolentiae'' began to be used in the prologues of

chivalric romance As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of high medieval and early modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalri ...

novels, addressing the readers and trying to have them view the work favourably.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Captatio Benevolentiae Latin literary phrases Latin legal terminology Rhetorical techniques