ABSTRACT
Invention is one of the most prominent terms in the rhetorical vocabulary. The three sources of persuasion, speaker, audience, and speech, all provide possibilities for the invention of motivation. Invention in Cicero is illustrated not only by his oration, but by all of his writings. Invention itself is discussed briefly in De partition oratorio, and Orator, and the topics, or places, used in invention are presented systematically in the Topica. Cicero begins De inventione by recommending the union of eloquence and wisdom; Aristotle, on the other hand, begins his Rhetoric by separating off rhetoric from wisdom and the other arts and sciences. Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of rhetoric, and this distinction has become a commonplace of the rhetorical tradition. Deliberative rhetoric is exhortation or dehortation, its end is the advantageous or harmful, and it relates primarily to the future.
