Institutio Oratoria

XI. As soon as these points are ascertained, the next step, according to Hermagoras, should be to consider what is the question at issue, the line of defence, the point for the judge's decision and the central point, or, as others call it, the foundation of the case. [*]( This highly technical chapter will be largely unintelligible to those who have not read chapter vi. Those who have no stomach for such points would do well to skip §§ 1–20; they will however find consolation in § 21 sqq., where Quintilian says what he really thinks of such technicalities. ) The question in its more general sense is taken to mean everything on which two or more plausible opinions may be advanced.

In forensic subjects however it must be taken in two senses: first in the sense in which we say that a controversial matter involves many questions, thereby including all minor questions; secondly in the sense of the main question on which the case turns. It is of this, with which the basis originates, that I am now speaking. We ask whether a thing has been done, what it is that has been done, and whether it was rightly done.

To these Hermagoras and Apollodorus and many other writers have given the special name of questions; Theodorus on the other hand, as I have already said, calls them general heads, while he designates minor questions or questions dependent on these general heads as special heads. For it is agreed that question may spring from question, and species be subdivided into other species.