The ***exordium*** is the opening of your speech. Its job is to prepare your [[audience]] for what follows—and obviously, the way to do that depends heavily on... what follows. (What are you going to argue? What does your audience already think? etc.) Both [[Quintilian]] and [[Cicero]] note prepearing your audience for what's to come has three elements to it: making the audience *like* you (i.e., match [[ethos]] to your audience, making them *attentive*, and making them ready" to hear what you have to say. Quintilian: > "The sole purpose of the [[exordium]] is to prepare our audience in such a way that they will be disposed to lend a ready ear to the rest of our speech. The majority of authors agree that this is best effected in three ways, by ==making the audience well-disposed, attentive and ready to receive instruction==. I need hardly say that these aims have to be kept in view throughout the whole speech, but they are especially necessary at the commencement, when we gain admission to the mind of the judge in order to penetrate still further." ([[Institutio Oratoria (95 AD)|Institutio]], bk 4, ch. 1.) Cicero: > XV. An [[exordium]] is an address bringing the mind of the hearer into a suitable state to receive the rest of the speech; and that will be effected if it has ==rendered him well disposed towards the speaker, attentive, and willing to receive information== ([[De Inventione (85 BC)|De Inventione]])