Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

For he thinks that the only statement of facts is that which gives a general account of the charge before the court. Yet he himself acknowledges that Cicero employed the statement of facts in his defence of Rabirius Postumus, in spite of the fact that Cicero denies that any money came into the hands of Rabirius (and this was the question at issue) and gives no explanations relating to the actual charge in his statement of facts.

For my part I follow the very highest authorities in holding that there are two forms of statement of facts in forensic speeches, the one expounding the facts of the case itself, the other setting forth facts which have a bearing on the case.

I agree that a sentence such as

I did not kill the man

does not amount to a statement of facts: but there will be a statement of facts, occasionally, too, a long one, in answer to the arguments put forward by the accuser: it will deal with the past life of the accused, with the causes which have brought an innocent man into peril, and other circumstances such as show the charge to be incredible.

For the

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accuser does not merely say

You killed him,

but sets forth the facts proving his assertion: tragedy will provide an example, where Teucer accuses Ulysses of murdering Ajax, and states that he was found in a lonely place near the lifeless body of his enemy with a blood-stained sword in his hands. To this Ulysses does not merely reply that he did not do the deed, but adds that he had no quarrel with Ajax, the contest between them having been concerned solely with the winning of renown: he then goes on to say how he came to be in the lonely place, how he found Ajax lying lifeless and drew the sword from the wound. Then follow arguments based on these facts.

But even when the accuser says

You were found on the spot where your enemy was killed

and the accused says

I was not,

a statement of facts is involved; for he must say where he was. Consequently cases of bribery and extortion will require as many statements of this kind as there are charges: the charges themselves will be denied, but it will be necessary to counter the arguments of the accuser either singly or all together by setting forth the facts in quite a different light.

Is it, I ask you, irrelevant for one accused of bribery to set forth his parentage, his past life and the services on which he relied for success in his candidature? And if a man is indicted for extortion, will it not be to his advantage to set forth not merely his past record, but also the reasons which have made the whole province or the accuser or a witness hostile to himself?

If these are not statements of facts, neither is the first portion of Cicero's [*](V. 11.) defence of Cluentius, beginning with the words

Aulus Cluentius Habitus.

For there he says nothing about the charge

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of poisoning, but confines himself entirely to setting forth the reasons for the hostility of Cluentius' mother to her son.

There are also statements which do not set forth the facts of the case itself, but facts which are none the less relevant to the case: the speaker's purpose may be to illustrate the case by some parallel, as in the passage in the Verrines [*]( V. 3. The shepherd was crucifed because the carrying of arms was forbidden. ) about Lucius Domitius who crucified a shepherd because he admitted that he had used a hunting spear to kill the boar which he had brought him as a present;

or he may desire to dispel some charge that is irrelevant to the case as in the passage of the speech for Rabirius Postumus, [*]( X. 28. The charge in question was that Rabirius had worn the Greek pallium instead of the Roman toga. But as an official of the king he was forced to wear Greek dress. ) which runs as follows:

For when he came to Alexandria, gentlemen, the only means of saving his money which the king suggested to Postumus was that he should take charge of the royal household and act as a kind of steward.

Or the orator may desire to heighten the effect of his charges, as Cicero [*](Verr. v. 10. ) does in his description of the journey of Verres.