Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
I also think there is at times some doubt as to which basis should be adopted, when many different lines of defence are brought to meet a single charge; and, just as in regard to the complexion to be given to the statement of the facts of the case, that complexion is said to be the best which the speaker can best maintain, so in the present connexion I may say that the best basis to choose is that which will permit the orator to develop a maximum of force.
It is for this reason that we find Cicero and Brutus taking up different lines in defence of Milo. Cicero says that Clodius was justifiably killed because he sought to waylay Milo, but that Milo had not designed to kill him; while Brutus, who wrote his speech merely as a rhetorical exercise, also exults that Milo has killed a bad citizen.
In complicated causes, however, two or three bases may be found, or different bases: for instance a man may plead that he did not do one thing, and that he was justified in doing another, or to take another similar class of case, a man may deny two of the charges.
The same thing occurs when there is a question about some one thing which is claimed by a number
Wills that are made in accordance with law shall be valid. When parents die intestate, their children shall be the heirs. A disinherited son shall receive none of his father's property. A bastard, if born before a legitimate son, shall be treated as legitimate, but if born after a legitimate son shall be treated merely as a citizen. It shall be lawful to give a son in adoption. Every son given in adoption shall have the right to re-enter his own family if his natural father has died childless. A father of two legitimate sons gave one in adoption, disinherited the other, and acknowledged a bastard, who was born to him later. Finally after making the disinherited son his heir he died. All three sons lay claim to the property.Nothbus is the Greek word for a bastard; Latin, as Cato emphasized in one of his speeches, has no word of its own and therefore borrows the foreign term. But I am straying from the point.
The son who was made heir by the will finds his way barred by the law
A disinherited son shall receive none of his father's property.The basis is one resting on the letter of the law and intention, and the problem is whether he can inherit by any means at all? can he do so in accordance with the intention of his father? or in virtue of the fact that he was made heir by the will? The problem confronting the bastard is twofold, since he was born after the two legitimate sons
The first problem involves a syllogism: are those sons who have been cast out from their own family to be regarded as though they had never been born? The second is concerned with the letter of the law and intention. For it is admitted that he was not born before any legitimate son, but he will defend his claim by appealing to the intention of the law, which he will maintain to imply that the bastard, born when there was no legitimate son in the family, should rank as legitimate.
He will dismiss the letter of the law, pointing out that in any case the position of a bastard is not prejudiced by the fact that no legitimate son was born after him, and arguing as follows:—
Suppose that the only son is a bastard, what will his position be? Merely that of a citizen? and yet he was not born after any legitimate son. Or will he rank as a son in all respects? But he was not born before the legitimate sons. As it is impossible to stand by the letter of the law we must stand by its intentions.